
*m 



m 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

Chap. Copyright No«_. 

^lie!l J EL44- i 5S4 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 











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JwffJ^K 



Seven Lectures 

DELIVERED IN 

Grace Church, Louisville, Ky. 

DUBIHOf 

LENT, A. D. 1889, 



/ 

GEORGE G. BETTS; RECTOR. 



^i\VO 



t^ 



NEW YORK : 

CHURCH KAI.KNDAR COMPANY, 
1895- 



Thb Library 
op Congress 

WASHINGTON 



-$&* 



COPYRIGHTED 

By the Rev. George C. Betts/ \k ' / 
1889. 

A.SSIGNED AND RE-ISSUED TO 

Church Kalendar Company, New York, 

1895- 



Contents* 







page 


I. 


Introductory, 


9 


II. 


Romanism (1), 


23 


III. 


Romanism ('J) 


43 


IV. 


Presbyterianism, 


61 


V. 


Methodism. - 


83 


VI. 


Baptists and Campbellites, 


109 


VII. 


Unitarians and other Infidels, 


131 



Qtofc + 



The true Eirenikon is the Battle-Gage. The hope 
of Christian Unity lies, not in the accommodating 
of differences nor in compromises of any sort as 
between bodies having equal right to exist, but 
only in the unconditional surrender of Sectarianism 
to the authority of the Catholic Church This we 
may not hope to secure, or promote, by any system 
of coaxing, nor by the establishment of a Mutual 
Admiration Society. The one is distrusted, the 
other is despised, and both are hollow, deceitful 
and false. Better by far, the plain, if unwelcome, 
enunciation of truth. 

The following Lectures were delivered without 
manuscript, and appear here from the Stenograph- 
er's report. They are not published because they 
are elegant, eloquent, or incomprehensible. They 
were intended for the people, and in some sense 
also in reply to criticism, and these may account 
for a greater freedom of speech than might have 
been chosen had they been written beforehand ; as 
too, for some repetitions necessary to the driving 
home ot truths. 

In all great struggles, men like to know where 
their leaders stand : and that passion for reality 
and definiteness will forgive a seemingly harsh 
word uttered in the shock of engagement. 

It is not claimed that there is anything new in 
these Lectures beyond the method employed. As 
the delivery of them was found to have been useful, 
it is hoped the publication of them may extend that 
usefulness, and promote the Glory of God. 

G. C. B. 



Ztjct 



"For Ziorts sake luill I not hold my peace, 
and for Jerusalem's sake will I not rest, until 
the righteousness thereof go forth as brightness, 
and the salvation thereof as a lamp that burneth" 

— Isaiah lxii, 1. 



3ttfrobucforj> + 



My brethren, I begin with the simple question, 
Is the Christianity of the nineteenth century per- 
fectly fulfilling its divine Mission? What is that 
divine Mission? 

'J he last prayer of our Blessed Lord for His 
disciples, and for those who should believe on Him 
through their teaching sets forth His idea of that 
first, most mysterious, most divine Mission, the 
sending forth of Jesus Christ from the glory which 
Me had with the Father, into this world for a distinct 
purpose. He said just before entering into His 
agony, "That they all may be one that the world 
may know that Thou hast sent Me." 

Every theological student knows that one of the 
chiefest of the subjects upon which he is to expend 
time and thought, and with regard to which, he 
must be examined before he can take orders, is 
entitled " the Evidences of Christianity." There 
are, I was about to say, and I think I may safely 
say, hundreds of volumes written upon what are 
called the Evidences of Christianity. But the 
Divine, the only convincing evidence, is not now 
seen : ' That they all may be one: as Thou 
Father art in Me and I in Thee that the world 
may know that Thou hast sent Me." 

The world, according to our Lord's judgment, 
can only know that the f on has been sent by the 
P'ather in the fact that Christians are at one with 
each other. Am] that indeed is the idea of the 
word atonement- at-one-ment — making those who 
are separated to be at one in Jesus Christ. 

Has that been accomplished? Is the picture 
which Christendom presents to-day oneness in faith, 



10 INTRODUCTORY. 

oneness in hope, oneness in love, oneness in prac- 
tice? All working together as friends and com- 
panions — being, as the Apostle terms it, of one 
mind, of one heart, of one way? I have heard it 
said in justification of what are popularly called 
union meetings, that it is a beautiful thing to see 
ministers and members of various denominations 
meet together and with one mouth glorify God. I 
say that that is no evidence whatever of a correct 
conception of Christianity; and that nowhere in 
Holy Scripture are men commanded merely with 
one mouth to glorify God. It is stated that they 
may with one mind and one mouth glorify God. 
But if there be seven minds, or seventy minds, or 
seven hundred minds diverse from each other, 
working from different data, or even from the same 
data to differing conclusions, though the central 
intention may be to glorify God, the end is not ac- 
complished. For you can always discover a factor 
present there, which is not of Divine origin or by 
JMvine sanction, and that is personal and diver- 
gent self-will : the exercise of which is incompatible 
with the glory of God. 

Now we are brought face to face with the fact 
that Christendom is not only not one, but that it does 
not seriously desire to be one There is now and 
then a make-believe effort for what men call Chris- 
tian Unity. But we know in our souls that it is 
only make-believe and that there is no reality what- 
ever about it. Men may mean to do what is right 
perhaps, but they cannot bring themselves to aban- 
don their own self-interest and their own self-will 
to accomplish it. Any of us who have been present 
at, or have heard of, the efforts of Christian people 
of various religious names in what are known as 
joint protracted meetings, or joint religious ser- 
vices of any kind, understand distinctly that not- 
withstanding all the veneering of affection — Yes, 
I use the word veneering, and advisedly too ; I say 
that notwithstanding all the veneering of affection, 



INTRODUCTORY. ll 

the saying of pleasant tilings, what are called 
courteous things, no one really expects to find be- 
neath the surface absolute agreement between the 
various sects which are now dividing Christendom. 
Each continues to pronounce its own shibboleth in 
its own way and each is absolutely positive that its 
way is the best way. That any one Minister 
among them does not say this before the joint con- 
gregations is solely because he shrinks from declar- 
ing in plain Saxon that there is but one way, and 
that he is the teacher of it. Because thinks he, 
people will say that it is presumptuous on my part 
— that I am assuming a good deal. 

And yet, we who profess to be followers of Jesu* 
Christ, who declare that salvation is only to be 
found in His Name ought to be ashamed of our- 
selves if, believing these things to be true, we have 
not courage enough to say so, and say so very posi- 
tively, and to say so of our individual presentation of 
truth. But is it not sad to come to human souls 
that are struggling through the wilderness of this 
life — to come to poor human souls who are tossed 
about by doubt, staggered by the inSeience of un- 
belief, bewildered by philosophy, confounded by so 
called science — and say, " Well I do not like to ex- 
press myself positively. I do not like to say that 
this is the only true Church, the only way of salva- 
tion I do not like to seem to cast a doubt upon 
the value of the ministrations of other men, al- 
though I myself would not admit these others to 
the Holy Communion. And, perhaps after all God 
intended, chat for the various types of minds, there 
should be various forms of worship, and various 
systems of belief, and so long as one sincerely be- 
lieves something that has some little reality and is 
in some way, however remote, related to what is 
called the essential beliefs of Christianity, I would 
not like to say that he was not all right." Now, is 
not that the language of the Christianity of to-day? 
And so then, in answer to the question I have al 



/2 INTRODUCTORY. 

ready propounded ; Is the Christianity of the nine- 
teenth century perfectly fulfilling its divine mission? 
I say emphatically No. And the best reason why 
1 hold she is not perfectly fulfilling her divine mis- 
sion is, that the sons, aye and the daughters too, 
of devout Methodists, Presbyterians, Baptists, 
Campbellites, Unitarians and others, are to-day 
infidels and utter disbelievers in the Christian re- 
ligion. 

They say "We are bewildered by the jarring 
voices and the different phases of religious belief 
that meet us. We do not know what to think or 
what to believe. 1 ' One declares : — " Hrought up in 
the straitest sect of the Christian religion I have 
come to doubt some of its cardinal beliefs, and find 
that this doubt of mine is shared by multitudes of 
the same communion. I find that as years go on 
the body with which I am affiliated is coming into 
accord with what is called Anninianism, or the or- 
dinary Evangelical Christianity of the day, which 
I had been taught to shun as an imposture." And 
I say to myself "If our fathers and grandfathers 
labored and fought for a faith which now their chil- 
dren have modified and their grandchildren are re- 
jecting, where is certainty to be found ? ; ' 

Take this City. Does any one expect to find the 
vast body of intellectual and gifted men in church 
on Sunday morning ? Were there — I ask } t ou gen- 
tlemen, — were there, do you think as many men in 
any church this morning, (I mean in any Protestant 
house of worship in this City,) as there are here 
this afternoon? Where do the men go on Sunday — 
our young men, our strong men, our intellectual 
men ? Where do they go on Sunday? Are not the 
various religious societies honeycombed with un- 
belief? Is there a strong dogma held strongly 
anywhere? Men have come to say that there are 
what are called essentials of Christianity, and non- 
essentials of Christianity: essentials of faith, and 
non-essentials of faith. I say for myself, and I be- 



INTRODUCTORY. 13 

lieve I speak for my Church too, that there are no 
such things, and can be no such things, as non- 
essentials in the faith of Christendom. There may 
be dogmas that do not sound to the ear as import- 
ant as others — there may be doctrines that do not 
appear to till so large a space of thought as some 
others, but there are no non-essential parts of 
faith, for faith — all of faith — is of God. 

What is there non-essential about God ? Shall 
we — as some of the sectarians attempt to do — 
shall we distinguish between the vastness of God's 
justice and the boundlessness of God's love? Shall 
we array His awful dignity in one color and in a 
less inviting color some other attribute — what we 
call attribute — of His existence ? [God has no at- 
tributes in Himself. We, indeed, distinguish be- 
tween certain characteristics of God, but that is 
because we have not brains to comprehend God. 
If we had there would be no need of a God. The 
man whose little mind can comprehend the Eternal 
mind knows quite as much as the Eternal mind, 
and is God enough for himself. We distinguish 
between certain acts of God, but in God Himself 
there is no distinction or partition of attributes.] 
But because men have fancied that they can do 
this thing and can make distinction between what 
they call the essential and the non-essential, they 
have attempted to say: "I believe in the exist- 
ence of God as the one great and essential fact." 
Another says : " I believe in a God of three per- 
sons and that is the great and essential fact." 
"Not so," says somebody: "that is not revealed." 

" Well, at all events we must believe, " says some 
one else, "in the Divinity of Jesus Christ, that, 
surely is an essential thing." But some so-called 
Christian says: " I am not sure about it. What do 
you mean by Divinity? I, too, believe He is Di- 
vine. But then, so am I divine; so is every im- 
mortal soul divine. I am not sure about what you 
call His Divinity." Then let us at least agree to be- 



l4 INTRODUCTORY. 

lieve that the Personality of the Holy Ghost is xa 
essential of faith. ' ' Well I am willing to concede, " 
somebody will say, " that there is a manifestation 
of God which we call the Spirit or the Holy Ghost: 
but when you say we must acknowledge the Per- 
sonality of the Holy Ghost as an essential part of 
Christian faith I am not quite sure that I can agree 
with you." 

You see in the very things that most men call 
Fundamentals there is divergence at the outset. 
Again, men assume to speak of certain facts as the 
minor matters of faith; such as that God has a 
special way of dealing with mankind, that He made 
a revelation of that way; and some men ask, If 
orod made a revelation where is it? Now, there 
are a great many excellent people of all names who 
agree that God has a way of dealing with mankind, 
and that, moreover, He has revealed that way; 
and if I should ask where is this revelation, they 
will say, of course, in the Bible. But another im 
mediately says, I do not see that it is; of course 
you are entirely mistaken. God was revealed be- 
fore the Bible was written. God was known to the 
people before Moses or before there was such a 
race as the Hebrews. God was known, worshipped, 
loved and adored by men, and men died in the 
knowledge and faith of God, and there was no 
Moses, no Hebrew race, not a line of the Bible 
written. The Hebrews had not come out of Egypt 
nor indeed had they even gone down into it. The 
Pentateuch was not in possession of anybody. Yet 
all this time people worshipped God according to 
some form, some dispensation, some revelation. 
Where is it? 

Then again, so far as Christianity is concerned, 

it is held by some that the Church was in existence 

long before there was a line of the New Testament 

written. Therefore, you must excuse me if I say 

hat I cannot quite take in the idea that God's 

relation of how He would be worshipped ?s 



INTRODUCTORY. 15 

solely, or perhaps, even primarily, in the Bible. 
Other people say : " If it be granted that there is a 
revelation in the Bible, yet you misapprehend the 
scope of it. God did not put forth such hard and 
fast rules as that He should be worshipped in any 
particular way. He left it pretty much to loving 
hearts, and some people picked up one way and 
some another. All that God desires is that man 
shall worship Him in some way." Very beautiful 
this if it were true, but inasmuch as many think it 
is not true — inasmuch as it is all denied by the 
disordered condition of Christendom to-day I take 
it upon myself to affirm that such is the lie upon 
which Protestantism is built. 

Protestantism is built up, not upon the Bible, 
but upon a lie, and that lie is, that God leaves man 
to judge for himself as to the way in which the Eter- 
nal shall be worshipped and as to the things which 
shall be believed with regard to Him. How other- 
wise can Protestants excuse their various relig- 
ions? We find one body of people who say (and 
this is called its arrogancy) that unless authority 
descends in regular succession from the time of the 
Apostles until now there can be no Church. That 
this same body is exclusive enough to say that it 
and it alone is the Witness and Keeper of Holy 
Writ, that Holy Writ belongs to it and to nobody 
else, that it alone is the interpreter of Holy Writ, 
and that its priests alone can administer true Sa- 
craments, that to it and it alone God has given his 
promises and with it alone He made His covenants, 
that Jesus Christ is the Husband of that Bride, 
and that she and she only is His Bride. Now that 
body calls itself the Catholic or Episcopal Church. 

I find another very respectable body that claims 
that the Atonement — observe: their books claim 
it (I shall come to that later on if I live) — that the 
Atonement of Our Lord was only intended for a 
certain portion of mankind and not lor all man- 
kind, but only for the elect; that God from all eter- 



16 INTRODUCTORY. 

nity chose out those whom He would save. These, 
thus chosen from all eternity, are in due process o> 
time wrought unon by His Divine Spirit, brought 
to conversion and a better life, and to the acceptance 
of the teachings of that particular kind of Chris- 
tianity. That these are preserved amid tempta- 
tions, raised up again when they fall, kept until 
the end, and at last ushered with shouts of ever- 
lasting joy into the presence of God Himself, the 
moment the breath of this life Las left their bodies. 
This is called Calvinism. 

Another religious body that rises up in opposi- 
tion to the foregoing declares that such a dogma is 
soul dastroying — soul destroying, mark you, and 
If these are not the teachings of Christ at all; 
tnat a man is not likely to be saved who holds 
them, (I am not speaking of what they preach on 
ounday, but what their books teach), and that the 
very opposite of Calvinism is true. 

Another body believes that there is quite a dif- 
ferent way of making people members of Christ, 
children of God, ami inheritors of the Kingdom of 
Heaven, than that which has been practiced un- 
quest : onect for centuries. That this way — its way 
— of administering Baptism is alone Baptism, and 
is alone authorized. No one can be a Christian 
unless he has accepted this particular way of being 
made a Christian, and this, of course, if it be true, 
ruins the hopes of millions of human beings who 
are not so persuaded, and have not so been united 
to Christ. 

X find another body which rejects formulated 
creeds, positive statements of faith ; which leaves 
each man absolutely free to interpret Holy Scrip- 
ture for himself; which is bound by no universal rule: 
tied down by no authoritative utterance of dogma 
or confession of faith, and this is declared to be 
the original way in which God wills to be served, 
and in which alone He would be worshipped. 

And then, there are people who take these state- 



INTRODUCTORY. IT 

ments of Holy Scripture, that have been relied on 
as facts by millions of other people, to be only alle- 
gories, and declare that the things which are re- 
garded as historical facts, things which are said to 
have absolutely taken place, never did really take 
place, but are parables, mere fairy tales like those 
in the ''Arabian Nights Entertainments" or in 
some of those exquisite oriental stories one reads, 
where beautiful imaginings and lofty aspirations and 
high ideals are clothed in a realistic form to give 
them strength, and that that is the best that can be 
said for them. This Christian body — observe, 
Christian body — apologizes for almost every page 
of Holy Scripture, and would seem to regret that 
it had not the opportunity of revising it as it was 
passing through the hands of the Evangelists and 
Apostles. 

And as the result of this divided Christendom, 
these organizations which are not simply other than 
each other (if I may use such an extraordinary 
phase), but are rivals of each other and necessa- 
rily so. Rivals and bitter rivals at that. And 
we have as a consequence, indifference as among 
the least of the evils. Ah! is it not an awful, a 
solemn thing, to think of the multitudes that are 
absolutely indifferent to the claims of Christianity, 
that are in doubt as to whether there be claims at 
all or not! We have, I say, indifference; but we 
have Skepticism, too. I am not saying one hard 
word against the skeptic. I hope please God, to 
say many words against the skeptic-makers who 
call themselves Christian men. For the skeptic, I 
have the sincerest sympathy. There are men who 
have come to deny the claims of Christianity on 
the ground that where the teachers of a philosophy 
— if Christianity be a philosophy — where the teach- 
ers of a philosophy cannot come to airy settled 
conclusion, it must be that some of the factors in 
their system are wrong, and so there follows upon 
failure to agree, first doubt, then absolute denial to 



13 INTRODUCTORY. 

men who feel themselves too brilliant, too intelli- 
gent to be taken in by the pretentions of the Chris- 
tianity of the nineteenth century. And (except for 
reasons which I hope to mention later on) I would 
say that no man can altogether blame — I doubt if 
God will altogether blame — the men who have 
thrown overboard the kind of Christianity, the 
emasculated Christianity, which the nineteenth cen- 
tury generally presents to them. 

To what is this condition due? Making every 
allowance for human fraility still there is a cause. 
Well, to put it in one word that cause I think, is 
cowardice. Men could not be found to stand faith- 
fully for Christ and the Church. Of course ail 
error has its root in pride, the first movement of 
error finds its place in pride, but speaking broadly 
the more immediate cause of this defection is cow- 
ardice. Christian priests did not dare to stand in 
the gap and to say, "This is the way walk ye in 
it. Turn ye neither to the right hand nor to the 
left. If ye go out of this way ye are lost." Men 
did go out of the way; fond affection, perhaps, fol- 
lowed them when conscience and judgment were 
against them, and when the matter was presented 
to loving hearts in this way: " Do you believe that 
I will be lost?" there was no one brave enough to 
say promptly, "yes, my friend, I believe you will." 
On the contrary it was said, "Well, I do not know; 
let us hope for the best. Perhaps all this is not 
necessary to salvation." All that was done was 
most likely to draw up one's shoulders and look 
doubtful. What was the end? It simply made 
the man persist in his opposition because he saw 
doubt where there should be strong conviction; 
he became an enthusiast, he gathered to himself 
others; they came to his way of thinking, and be- 
fore it was suspected almost, a new church was 
born into the world. The doubter of Orthodoxy 
became the apostle of Heterodoxy. 

Xow I propose to examine during the succeeding 



INTRODUCTORY. 19 

Sundays in Lent some of these chief departures 
from the original type. It is a very delicate task, 
but I want to do it fairly, justly, and fully as time 
will permit. 

And I want to say in concluding this lecture 
something of the spirit in which I hope this inves- 
tigation, in which we shall engage, may be con- 
ducted. I hold that we should bring to our dis- 
cussion calm judgment. I shall try for my part to 
be as calm as possible. I do not expect to over- 
come all the infirmities of human nature, and per- 
haps that peculiar human nature with which I may 
be gifted. I do not expect that you will be alto- 
gether calm. I fear that some of you will be any- 
thing but calm. But let us try, let us try at least, 
to bring to this investigation as much calmness, as 
much evenness of temper, and as much fairness of 
judgment as is possible for poor human beings who 
are only imperfectly gifted at the best. And let 
me say that no matter how this investigation may 
result, whether in pleasing or displeasing us, it 
ought to be beneficial for all of us. If in examin- 
ing the claims of some of the chief organizations 
which we find in the land I shall discover one more 
beautiful, more certainly God-given than the one of 
which I am a priest, I pledge you my word of 
honor I shall not remain five minutes longer in the 
communion ot the Church in which I am— not five 
minutes ! I would not remain out of the true Church 
if Christ for all that this world could give me! 
And wherever I can find that true Church — for I am 
sure she must be somewhere— If I am not already 
in her I will go to her. A nd it ought to be benefi- 
cial to you as well as myself. It will give you an 
opportunity for reviewing the position of those who 
are not in the same Church, it may give you an 
opportunity of reviewing your own position. We 
must all admit that a very large number of the 
people are not adequately taught in the doctrines 
and the discipline of the various bodies with 



20 INTRODUCTORY. 

which they are connected. I am quite sure that 
there are hundreds of Romanists that never read 
the Catechism of the Council of Trent nor examined 
some recent decisions. I am positive that there are 
hundreds of Presbyterians who never committed to 
memory the Confession of Faith of the Westminster 
Assembly of Divines. I am quite sure that there 
are numbers of Presbyterians that are heartily sorry 
that they ever did commit it to memory. Some of 
them at least have said so to me. I am quite sure 
that there are numbers of Methodists who never 
studied their Discipline, :aid numbers of Baptists 
who never read the Baptist Directory. Our Campbel- 
lite friends have nothing to read because they say 
they have no confession of faith. I give them credit 
for reading the New Testament; but there is one 
part of it which I am afraid they do not read, 
which says, "Hear the Church," and then as for 
our Unitarian friends — well, well, we must wait 
for them until the last lecture! 

We want to examine foundations. We want to 
get down to the root of these matters. I want you 
to know why you ere where you are, and whether 
your position is a tenable one. And in doing this 
we will have always before us the one idea of try- 
ing to reach the standard of Divine Truth. Of 
course I trust you understand that in seeking this 
end, I am seeking only the glory of my crucified 
Lord. We are at this season of the Church's year 
entering upon the shadow which gloomed His 
earthly life and which culminated in the awful, the 
mysterious, the horrible blackness of Calvary; 
there He died that men might be one in Him. 
Through the murk and mist, aye, even through the 
darkest shades of that awful Good Friday as He 
hung upon the Cross, some gleam of light and hope 
flashed forth from that bloody throne as from those 
lips that spake such words of gentleness and love 
to little children, of forgivness to poor Mary, that 
pade devils flee from human souls, restoring hear- 



INTRODUCTORY. 21 

ing to the deaf and sight to the blind; those poor 
lips of His now fast purpling in death, there came 
theory, " Father forgive them for they know not 
what they do." Surely He included in that all 
prevailing " Father forgive them," not only the 
Roman soldiers who parted His garments among 
them and cast lots upon His vesture, but also those, 
who through all the centuries, straying from His 
one fold, falling away from that embrace of His, 
should, like them, crucify Him afresh and by their 
divisions rend His sacred garments again and cast 
lots upon His vesture. 

Yes, I believe from that Altar of Sacrifice, that 
throne of Infinite love, His prayer will one day be 
answered, and for that day I am looking and hast- 
ing and praying that His Divine Will may have 
speedy accomplishment and His Kingdom come. 

In entering, therefore, upon this work of recon- 
ciling men to God it is the one thought of my heart, 
the one desire of my soul, that He may bring into 
the way of truth all such as have erred and are 
deceived. 



II. 

(Romanism* 

a). 

I want, first of all, to dispose of two criticisms 
which I heard during the past week, in reference 
to myself, if I may be pardoned for speaking of 
such here. One was: "This man believes his 
Church to be the best Church in existence." I re- 
ply: Of course I do, that is the reason I am in it. 
And in this, I presume, I am quite in accord with 
every minister, authorized or unauthorized, of every 
religious body on the face of the earth. I take it 
for granted that every man is honest in this belief, 
if he be not he is either a hypocrite or a traitor, 
or what is quite as bad, a coward. And if he 
does believe that the religious body which he serves 
is the best in existence he is just as arrogant as I 
am, neither more nor less. 

The second criticism was something akin: " You 
oelieve your Church to be the only Church on earth. " 
To this I reply: That is true and it is not true. It is 
true in so far as that I hold there is but one Church 
on earth — the Holy Catholic Church — and that this 
is a part of it. It is not true in that I believe there 
are other National Catholic Churches, with some 
of which we are not in visible communion, but 
which still bear the marks and tokens of the true 
Church. And it may be permitted me to add, that 
no reasonable man can object to an earnest en- 
deavor on my part to bring every one that J can 
influence in.o the unity of that Church which I be- 
lieve to be the only true Church on earth. As to 
the best way of accomplishing that object, I sup- 
pose men will gene -ally disagree. But my experi- 



24 ROMANISM. I. 

ence has been that it was always the men who 
stayed at home, and never saw the war, who were 
the only people who knew how that war ought to 
have been conducted. 

Now I begin to-day with Romanism, not because 
this is St. Patrick's Day, h jwever. I begin with 
Romanism because it is the most dangerous of all 
the various religious bodies represented on this 
continent. I am speaking now, of course, of Chris- 
tian bodies. And the reason why it is so danger- 
ours is because it is so near — so very near — the 
truth. The error which can scarcely be distin- 
guished from the truth, is always the most subtle, 
the most dangerous. 

For, busy people are not apt, and lazy people 
dislike, to spend much time thinking about the 
foundation of things. They are affected more by 
what they see than by what they merely hear, and 
our Roman Catholic friends have a most adroit 
and ingenious way of pushing their Catholicity, 
which no one denies, to the front, and, by means of 
it covering up the Romanisms which lie beneath ; 
and yet these very Romanisms attract distracted 
Protestants as much as the Catholicity of that bodj 
(strange as that may sound), from the inability of 
the Protestant mind to distinguish between them. 

One of the greatest charms which Romanism 
presents to the undisciplined Protestant mind is 
the appearance of external unity which it man- 
ifests. Here they, the Protestants, arc brought 
lace to face with an almost perfect Bystem of gov- 
ernment, and an almost perfect form of faith. Go 
where you will, into the quiet country place, or the 
iittle village, or the crowded city, and you will find, 
whether it be built of wood, or brick, or stone, or 
marble, the Roman Catholic Church presenting 
pretty much the same appearance to the eye. In 
one place it is poor, in another wealthy, but always 
the first thing which strikes you as you enter the 
hnilding is the Altar vith its Tabernacle, it* Cruci- 



ROMANISM. I. 25 

fix and its Candles. The Altars vary in magnifi- 
cence. Some are built of cheap wood and badly 
painted; some are tawdry and offensive to good 
taste; some are of richer wood and handsomely 
carved; some are of stone and marble and brass, 
and are gemmed and decked with precious stones; 
diamonds sparkle from the Altar Cross and from 
the Chalice, and costly gems make the candlesticks 
themselves ablaze; but the same external appear- 
ance is there, and that is a great thing. 

Then again, the priests present, very mueh, the 
same appearance. Whether in a poor Church or 
in a stately Cathedral the vestments are generally 
the same. And each article of apparel which the 
priest wears, when conducting the service, has its 
special meaning and significance; and so the ob- 
server thinks to himself, "This is very proper, this 
is most appropriate. The God who reigns on high, 
and is adored, and loves to be adored, by human 
beings, must look not merely with complacency, 
but with pleasure, upon the services where all the 
surroundings speak of Him, and of Him only; 
where everything proclaims His sovereignty and 
His grandeur, and where the gestures, the lights 
and songs and vestments and incense, all declare 
that sense of God's greatness and man's littleness, 
which rebukes pride, and effectually establishes the 
proper relation between God and man." And Pro- 
testants, strangely enough, are very susceptible to 
these things. Theoretically, they are opposed to 
them. Practically, they rejoice in them; for they 
recognize, and reproduce as far as possible, the ef- 
fects which they imagine should flow from these 
causes, and imitate, with more or less painful ef- 
fort, what they suppose to be the causes of that 
which they observe and desiderate, while far from 
penetrating the true secret of their astonishing in- 
fluence. 

I hope before this lecture closes, but if not in 
this, then in some other lecture, to show you the 



£6 ROMANISM. I. 

way in which these ceremonies come to recom- 
mend themselves to the reason, and above all, to 
the faith and love of men, and that this has had a 
great deal to do with modifying Protestantism, 
both in its theories and practices. 

Then again, the Roman Catholic system is mar- 
velously compact in its discipline. The people are 
generally obedient to their Priests — that is a strange 
thing— and the Priests to their Bishops— that too, 
is strange — the Bishop to the Archbishop, the 
Archbishop to the higher authorities, and the high- 
er authorities to the Pope of Rome. And so when 
presenting to disorganized Christianity this method 
of management they represent themselves as being 
the only body that possesses it, the statement is ac- 
cepted by Protestantism, not with a good grace, 
perhaps, but still as an unqustionable fact. 

Then again, she encourages the entire devotion 
of men and women to God's service. Is there a 
man who desires to devote himself body and soul to 
the service of God ? Be he priest or layman, Rome 
has a place for him. In some one or other of the 
orders or congregations or monasteries, she will 
find him an opportunity to spend his life. It" a 
man is drawn toward the splendid example of S. 
Francis, the Franciscans open their arms to him: 
if enamoured by the teaching of S. Dominic, the 
Dominicans greet him. If he is drawn toward 
controversy, the Paulists are on the spot. If his 
desire is to the contemplation of the Passion of our 
Lord, the Passionists welcome him. If to be a 
subtle metaphysician is his aim, are not the 
nits ready? So that, whether as priest or layman, 
Rome can find a place for him. And that is as it 
should be. 

If a woman, filled with devotion, loving God and 
loving men, seeks to give herself entirely to the 
service of God and man, there are a thousand eon- 
vents open to her. Does she exhibit patience, gen- 
tleness and unweariedness, they will make her a 



B0MAN1SM. I. 27 

nurse. Is she gifted with brains, they will make 
her a teacher. Does she undersand music, she 
can be employed in this direction. And in any 
and every direction she is taught to believe that 
she is equally serving God and working out her 
soul's salvation; and so she is. I have nothing but 
the most unbounded praise for the opportunity thus 
afforded to human souls to work for God ami hu- 
manity; all the converted nuns to the contrary not- 
withstanding. 

Then Rome appeals, in almost every city, to prac- 
tical men in her works of charity. For instance: 
Here is a town just started. A railroad has just 
been projected through it. By and by some poor 
fellow is injured in an accident, and must be pro- 
vided for. The city has no hospital and scarcely a 
physician. The priest (God bless him) gets a few 
loyal souls together, a house is rented, some beds 
are put up, some sisters are soon on the spot, and 
they spend their days and nights in taking care of 
the sick and wounded, and so approve themselves 
to men by their love and devotion. They deserve 
all the credit that they are likely to get. 

Moreover, this attention is not directed alone to 
the body. Take the poor fellow in some western 
city, far from home and friends, who is injured in 
6ome accident, and longs for the tender hand and 
voice of wife, or mother, or sister. The Sister of 
Charity waits on him by day and night, coming in 
her gentle way to speak the words of comfort which 
seem even better from her lips than from the 
priest's. If he must pass down into the valley of 
death, she is the nearest to him now, and the last 
of this earth to him is her sweet face and broken 
voice bidding him God speed as he crosses the 
mysterious river. No wonder the remembrance or 
the relation of such scenes should have their almost 
omnipotent influence. 

If on the other hand he may be won back io life, 
it is her face and voice that furnish encouragement 



28 ROMAKlttM. I. 

to him. She improves every hour. Perhaps he 
had not thought much of religion, or he had 
strayed from a religious home and life ; and in this 
practical benefactress he finds the hand that leads 
him back to trust in God and to a greater faith in 
humanity. And so, when life comes back to him 
he becomes, if not indeed a member of the Roman 
Catholic Church, yet he becomes a champion of it; 
and who can blame him? And when he finds him- 
self sinking into the gloom of death he, I was about 
to say, most naturally turns to the faith of the kind 
soul who tended him so lovingly when friends and 
relatives were far away. These things we know, 
and therefore you see I am beginning what I have 
to say by saying the very best that can be said of 
this organization. 

Now if Protestantism had nothing to deal with 
but the Romanisms of the Roman Catholic Church, 
the battle would have been decided long since and 
in favor of Protestantism. But Romanism plus Ca- 
tholicity is more than a match for all the Protest- 
ant sects combined. 

Take the best posted preacher among the Metho- 
dists, Presbyterians, Baptists, Campbellites, Unita- 
rians or any of them that you please, put him in 
controversy against a half-educated Roman Catho- 
lic priest, and the Romanist will make mince-meat 
of him in half an hour. Because Protestantism 
against Catholicity has not a leg to stand on. Pro- 
testantism set out to uproot Romanism, but could 
not distinguish between Romanism and Catholicity. 
It regarded, and does still, popularly, regard the 
words as synonyms. Well, of course it cannot 
touch Catholicity. It might just as well abandon 
the struggle. It cannot do it. It began under the 
most favorable circumstances in Germany and met 
with disastrous failure. It tried it in Scotland and 
England and again it failed. It is trying it day by 
day in this country and is always failing. Roman- 
ism because of its Catholicity, remains, so far as 



ROMANISM. L 29 

that Catholicity is concerned, just where it was any 
time in the last four hundred } ears. More, it adds, 
because of that powerful friend, dogma to dogma 
in spite of all the efforts of Protestantism. 

Were the various sects to unite for the purpose 
of uprooting Romanism, they might succeed, pro- 
vided they became Catholics to do it! But until 
they shall unite, and by that word I mean until 
they shall have corporate unity, there is not the 
least possible chance for them in this world, and in 
Heaven they will not be known. 

Now the position of the Church of England, and 
our Church in this country is, from one point of 
view, a most unhappy one. From another, it is 
occupying just the place, I think, which Our 
Blessed Lord would have it occupy. (I speak of 
them as one for brevity's sake.) She is the prey of 
both of these bodies. The Romanist attacks her 
because she has renounced the Romanisms of that 
body. The Protestant sects attack her because she 
persistantly emphasizes her own Catholicity. There- 
fore, standing as she does, midway between these, 
and being what I believe you call in politics the third 
party, she ought to have the balance of power, and she 
can safely say that she is i he natural center of unity. 

After hundreds of years Protestantism has made 
no perceptible advance. Now observe, I do not 
mean to say that Protestant sects have not grown 
numerically, although I believe I am correct in say 
ing that they are by no means keeping pace either 
with their earlier efforts or the population of the 
country. I am speaking of the "ism." Protest- 
antism has made no perceptible advanee. On the 
contrary I insist that its motion is retrograde. 
It has deliberately given up positions which were 
assumed at first by its various sects, and positions 
which were deemed vital. It has therefore de- 
barred itself from the right of assailing Rome for 
the addition of dogmas. To take from, is equally 
as bad as to add too. 



30 ROMANISM. T. 

Now, one can understand a part of the Catholic 
Church feeling its cause and itself aggrieved by 
unauthorized addititions to the Faith once for all 
delivered to the Saints, but that a sect which had 
abandoned the unity of the Church, and thereby 
one of the chief articles of the faith, and which, 
moreover, had consciously relinquished the par- 
ticular doctrine which it set out to teach, and which 
in fact was the reason for its being, should lift up 
its voice in condemnation, is something worse than 
incomprehensible. 

But this is precisely what it does, and it is hardly 
necessary for me to attempt the proof since your 
own minds must bear me out in the statement that 
Protestantism in its various forms has deliberately 
abandoned doctrinal positions assumed at the be- 
ginning. 

To-day, Protestantism pretends to simply ignore 
and avoid the Roman >jLtholic Chm-ch. It effects 
to treat it, as school-girls treat each other when 
offended, that is, with silent contempt. But 
in spite of all, Romanism goes right on and gath- 
ers in her converts every day from the ranks of the 
staunchest Protestants because it has something 
definite and they have not. 

And Protestants are the great allies of the Ro- 
man Church. They aid her far more than they 
know by that one matter to which I alluded: — the 
inability to distinguish between Romanism and 
Catholicity. 1 cannot press this too strongly upon 
you. Even in our own communion where an ever 
increasing effort is made to preserve this distinc- 
tion I very much fear that were some one to ap- 
proach some Episcopalian who was suffering from a 
too free breathing of Protestant atmosphere, and 
ask, — Where will I find a Catholic Church? He 
would reply: — "On Brook street; or Fifth and 
Walnut,' 7 instead of " on Gray street, between 
?. : syi and Preston. " So in this way you perceive, 
you neip ths Romanist in the dissemination of his 



ROMANISM. I. 31 

news, and your children learn your language and 
will perpetuate your error, as you your forefather's. 

The Roman Catholic Church is clearly right and 
truly Catholic in her order, and in so much of her 
present faith as is contained in the Nicene Creed. 
The two great marks of the Catholic Church are: 
Faith and Order. The Faith, or code of belief, is 
contained in what is generally known as the Nicem 
Creed. The Order of the Church is her Ministry 
of Bishops, Priests and Deacons in regular succes- 
sion from the Apostles' days until the present. 
These Rome has, and so she is a true Church. A 
trne Church, however, is not necessarily a pure 
one ; and this distinction must be kept in mind. 
A pure Church must, of course, be a true Church. 
And here is where certain schismatic bodies find 
their excuse ; for, convinced of the purity of their 
motives, their sincere desire to promote the glory 
of God a. "* the good of men, they have not looked 
upon matters which, in their judgment, dealt only 
with order and form as a necessity of existence. It 
is quite conceivable that a religious body may hold 
the Nicene Faith, with but one exception, and even 
differ as to that exception from the true Church, by 
interpretation only, and yet, on that account, not 
be a Church at all, because it lacks the Order of 
the Church. But of this again. 

But in the case of Rome, we charge upon her 
that she has added to this deposit of Faith, which 
was not to be increased or diminished, which came 
from the hands of its divine Original complete and 
irreformable, various matters which were unknown 
to the Catholic Church of the first centuries after 
Christ as of faith and are therefore erroneous. 

Let me here explain what I mean by that word 
44 erroneous ". I do not mean that eac'h addition 
is necessarily false in itself. I want, if I can, to 
show you that whether true or false in itself, it is 
equally an error to adopt it into the Body of Belie! 
Which is necessary to salvation. You say: How 



32 ROMANISM. I. 

can that be true ? I say, simply because that par- 
ticular item was not set forth by the Apostles, was 
not authorized by a lawful (Ecumenical Council, 
and because not so set forth in the beginning cannot 
possibly be needful for salvation, for which no new 
terms can be set without a new revelation. 

Why, some of the sorest tria's the Church has 
been called on to endure were due to attempted addi- 
tions, one of them, at least, so small as a single 
letter, and that the smallest in the Greek alphabet. 
The separation between the Eastern and Western 
Churches (commonly spoken of as the Greek and 
Latin) was due mainly to the introduction of one 
word into the Creed. 

Some of these comparatively recent additions 
were for a long time held by theologians and devout 
people as what are called pious opinions. So long 
as they remained only opinions nobody took any 
great trouble about them. The - might be true or 
not true. They were perhaps extravagant in ex- 
pression, but that extravagance was put down to 
extreme devotion, and inasmuch as they were not 
matters of faith they were not anathematized. But 
by-and-byc these came to be taught under some 
kind of authority as matters of faith; that is to 
say. this portion of the Church, the Roman Church, 
set them forth as belonging to the deposit of faith, 
and demanded that her people receive and believe 
them as necessary to salvation, and there you see 
at once the difficulty arose. 

I might for myself believe that a certain opinion 
or devotion would not only be no disadvantage to 
me, but very valuable for the growth of piety in 
me, or in others ; but to say in my place here as a 
priest of the Church that such is absolutely neces- 
sary to salvation and a part of the faith once for 
all delivered to the saints, I would grievously err, 
even though the act, or devotion, or opinion were 
good. 

Now the chief of these, for of course you under- 



BOMANISM. I. 8& 

stand that I cannot go into the detaL i , daeh of 
them, are: Papal Supremacy, Transutetsantiation, 
the Immaculate conception of the Blessed Virgin 
Mary, a certain view concerning Purgatory, the 
worship of the Blessed Virgin and other Saints, and 
Papal Infallibility. 

It is the genius of Roman Catholic theologians to 
mix things together, the true and the false. It is 
the genius of Protestantism to reject the true with 
the false. For instance, the Roman Catho\ic 
Church speaks of the Primacy of the Bishop of 
Rome and also of the Supremacy of the Pope as if 
they were one and the same thing ; and by juggling 
with these words she makes it very difficult for 
ordinary people to tell whether there is any real 
difference between them at all, and the impression 
conveyed to the Protestant mind is that there is no 
difference. But they are as wide asunder as the 
poles. The Church in England or America might 
not have insuperable objection to the Primacy of 
the Bishop of Rome. The Supremacy of the Bishop 
of Rome is utterly rejected as anti •'tathcjks if not 
positively anti-Christian. 

The Primacy of the Bishop of Rome is merely 
that condition in which an officer is first among his 
•3-quals. The Supremacy of the Bishop of Rome is 
where a man is elevated above all other men and 
has no equal. He stands alone, sovereign above 
all. This, you perceive, is an altogether different 
matter. In any body of men, met for deliberative 
purposes, some one must be first, not that he is 
wiser or better, or because he has a wider juris- 
diction, but merely from the necessity of the case; 
that is a primacy, a primacy of honor, of courtesy, 
it may be, and in this way our own Communion, 
following the habit of the earliest Councils of the 
Church, has a Presiding Bishop, who, however, 
Iocs not arrogate to himself any special spiritual 
powers on account of that selection. He may be 
eaUed, as he is in fact, the Primate of the Amerv 



o4 HUMANISM. I. 

can Church. Similarly, when all the Bishops ot 
the Anglican Communion throughout the world are 
in session at Lambeth, the Archbishop of Canter- 
bury presides. He is the Primate of the English 
Church, and because of the relations subsisting 
between that body and our own, he may be said to 
be the Primate of the whole Anglican Communion. 
But this invests him with no authority dejure, nor 
even de facto, to say nothing of the still higher 
claim affected by the Bishop of Rome. 

When the Bishops met tor Council in the earlier 
centuries, the Bishop of Rome was esteemed first 
among his equals, nothing more. Not because 
Rome was the mother and mistress of all churches, 
for she was not ; but because Rome was the avail- 
able centre of learning, of influence, and of power; 
and for these reasons, conjoined to an early ambi- 
tion, which does not appear to have diminished 
with the diminution of either power or respect, the 
Bishop of Rome came to preside among his 
brethren. But this did not give him the lordship 
over the whole Church throughout the world. 
Now, however, the Pope no longer regards himself 
as a Bishop among Bishops, or indeed merely of 
the Episcopal order, but rather as though a higher 
Order had been revealed or revived for his especial 
use, an Order of sole supreme special jurisdiction, 
not to be confounded with the Episcopate, tin- 
source of all mission, not only to all other Bishops, 
but to the minor clergy as well, and which virtuallj 
degrades the Episcopates into a mere Arch-Pres- 
byterate. 

I now read the exact words in which this is set 
forth, and I ask your close attention to them : — 

u The Pope has authority over temporalities or 
Kings and Princes and that he has a right to de- 
throne heretical Princes and absolve their subjects 
from allegiance, because he possesses the temporal 
as well as the spiritual sword over every creature 
upon earth." 



ROMANISM. I. 

This is their own statement, observe ; and be- 
longs to That is called the Royalties of S. Peter, 
and every Bishop, even though he be an American 
citizen, must, before he can be consecrated, take 
an oath to maintain and stand by the Royalties of 
S. Peter. 

- And this is claimed in virtue of the fact (?) that 
the pope is the successor of whom? 8. Peter! 
Imagine S. Peter on the day of Pentecost, or on 
any other day, claiming authority over the tem- 
poralities of kings and princes. Imagine S. Peter 
on his missionary journeys, making such a prepos- 
terous spectacle of himself. Why the idea never 
entered the minds of a human soul in the ancient 
Church. There is not a word about such claim in 
che Fathers. And if any priest or layman can show 
me a single statement in any of the accredited writ- 
tings of the Ante-iVicene Fathers where this Su- 
premacy was even hinted at, as a prerogative 01 
the Roman Pontiff, I will make my submission to 
the Roman Catholic Bishop of this city at once. 

But no such hint will be found, either there or in 
Holy Scripture. There is absolutely no certain 
mention of it until about the sixth century, when 
the Popes began to grow in power because the con- 
trol which Rome had begun to acquire, gave fre- 
quent occasions for appeal to the decisions of the 
Bishop of Rome, and he gradually beeame a sort Oi 
universal abitrator. 

The first grasp alter temporal power was made 
in the year 752, when the king of France ceded 
some provinces to the Pope. Authority began to 
be asserted over princes in the eighth century 
and very largely at the instigation of rival prin- 
ces, and Rome easily learned the diplomatic art 
of playing them against each other. This demor- 
alizing power reached its height in the eleventh 
century under Gregory, then, on account of the im- 
moralities—the horrible lives of some of the clergy 
-this constraint that had been placed upon Chris- 



36 ROMANISM. I. 

tian princes, and which had been resisted for cen- 
turies, was now regarded as a menace to liberty; 
until at last the blow was struck which inaugurated 
a strife that ended in the downfall of the temporat 
power of the Pope. 

Nevertheless, he makes the claim to-day just as 
stoutly as ever, and as the claim must have some 
show of authority and antiquity, certain alleged 
canons, or decrees, are produced and exhibited as 
being genuine articles which chronicle the deriva- 
tion and bestowal of this more than regal claim. 
Oh ! sagacious Mother ! When has any imposture 
failed of divine or quasi-divine testimony when 
became necessary to bolster up pretention ? 

These authorizations are called the Decretals of 
Isidore. The Roman Catholic Church might with 
great propriety, and perhaps greater truth, be 
called The Isidorian Church. I need not speak at 
length about these Decretals, because they are well 
known to be not only false but foolish. They are 
forgeries, long detected and exposed. No Roman 
Catholic historian of the least respectability will 
deny that they are anything else than forgeries. 
And on the strength, or weakness, of these the 
whole theory is based. 

As the Popes saw the temporal power slipping 
away from them it became necessary to find some- 
thing which should take its place, in some measure 
at least. As one after another discovered that his 
name did not start a ghost in every land, and that 
e^'e:: Rca»«L Cathclic kings and princes could and 
did withstand him, some less get-at-able position 
must be assumed. Earth was gliding from him, 
could not the powers of Heaven be invoked ? 

Yes ! the prop for the waning power was, if not 
ready-made yet capable of being made to order. 
Strange to say, it was made to order, but our 
friends now insist that it was always ready-made. 
It is called Papal Infallibility. 

This dogma which sprang into existence in the 



ROMANISM. I. 37 

year 1870 is at once declared to have been through 
all ages since Pentecost the belief of the faithful, 
and at the same time to be only another Protestant 
invention, the object of which was to prejudice peo- 
ple against the true Church. 

It has bec;t asserted again and again by Priests, 
authors of catechisms, and controversialists that 
I'apal Infallibility was not a dogma of the Roman 
Communion, but on (he contrary was a mere fig- 
ment of the Protestant brain intended to bring the 
Roman Church into disrepute. I have now in my 
scrap book part of a catechism in which it is de- 
clared that the statement that Catholics believe the 
Pope to be infallible is a Protestant invention. I 
have also the statement of a priest in Cincinnati 
that to say that the Church claims that the Pope is 
infallible is "foul slander. " 

But what can be said of the morality of a man 
who declares that to be a " foul slander " to-day, 
which to-morrow is necessary to salvation ? Oh ! 
the smartness of these excellent people ! Oh ! the 
adroitness of these defenders of the faith 1 Of 
course it was not a dogma until it was decreed, but 
if it had always been believed it must have always 
been taught, and shall a priest declare that what 
the Church had always taught was a " foul slan- 
der?" Yet so it is. 
• This now, is the definition of the dogma of Infal- 
libility. " We define and teach that it is a dogma 
divinely revealed that the Roman Pontiff when he 
speaks ex cathedra, that is when in the discharge 
of the office of Pastor and Doctor of all Christians, 
by virtueof his supreme apostolic authority, he de- 
fines a doctrine regarding faith or morals to be held 
by the universal Church, by the Divine assistance 
promised to him in Blessed Peter, is possessed of 
that infallibility with which the Divine Kedeemer 
willed that the Church should be endowed for de- 
fining doctrine with regard to faith and morals: 
and that therefore such definitions of the Roman 



38 ROMANISM. I. 

Pontiff are irreformable of themselves and not from 
the consent of the Church.' 1 

There it stands. In their own words. Observe: 
11 We teach and define. " Who teach and define ? 
The Council ? Where then was the infallible Pope ? 
Why wait until this late day to utter the tremend- 
ous truth of his own infallibility ? Or, why permit 
such a matter so vital to faith to be uttered by a 
Council when his own utterance is irreformable of 
itself and not from the consent of the Church ? 
Again behold the tactics of Rome. The definition 
declares that ''the Divine Redeemer willed that His 
Church should be endowed with infallibility." That 
proposition might receive a ready assent. But is 
the Pope the Church ? Is he even the mouthpiece 
of the Church? 

Now, the Romanists have a most agile way 
of skipping about, like that peculiar insect 
which is at once the affinity and the torment of the 
Irishman. Almost captured at one moment, he 
springs up fresh at another. If you say: — "Why 
this is endowing a man with the attributes of God 
Himself;" he will reply:— '-You do not understand 
the doctrine; infallibility is only when he defines 
something " ex cathedra." To define a dogma, is 
not very difficult to the understanding; but to define 
it "ex cathedra" ah! there's the rub. That word 
has a sound which is perfectly triumphant ! the 
argument is ended ! It is the word u ex cathedra 11 
that does it all! If you should say:— " Is it not 
conceivable that a man, even a Pope, might make 
an incorrect statement with regard to faith or mor- 
als ?" They reply:— "But his statement must be 
with the consent of the Church. " But we object: 
It is not so stated in the bond. It is distinctly de- 
clared that his definitions are irreformable of them- 
selves and not from the consent of the Church. He 
alone may announce dogmas, in effect he is the 
voice of God to humanity; and although this may 
not be put into words, yet this is precisely the idea 



ROMANISM. I. 39 

conveyed by the Priests to the ordinary people of 
that communion at all events. 

My friends, this dogma, like the doctrine of the 
Papal Supremacy was utterly unknown to the 
ancient Church. There is no trace of it. I chal- 
lenge the production of one passage from the an- 
cient fathers in support of it. It is even now the 
very despair of theologians among themselves. In 
making converts it is kept out of sight as long as 
possible, unless the new-born and unusual ardor, 
or the extreme guUibility of the 'vert makes it easier 
to explain than to one born and bred within the 
Roman communion. Were it true the most in- 
famous lives might be correct. 

I perceive that I have reached the limit of time 
I had set for this address and must postpone to 
another occasion what I desire to say with regard 
to others of the errors of this Church, such as Ma- 
riolatry, Purgatory, and the Eucharist. Of such 
additional lecture due notice will be given. 

I close now by saying that if the Popes have al- 
ways been infallible, when speaking Ex Cathedra, 
then there are decisions which, acccepted and pro- 
claimed by one Pope, have been condemned and 
anathematized by another. That which has been 
set forth by one as the undoubted truth of God, has 
been declared by another a blasphemous error and 
a dangerous deceit. And here I challenge denial. 

There are deplorable divisions among Protest- 
ants, but there are divisions also among Roman- 
ists. Nothing amuses me more than to hear some 
Roman theologian talk of the differences of opin- 
ion that obtain in our own Church, and cite this as 
a proof of its illegitimacy; while all while he 
knows, or ought to know, that the most disgraceful 
divisions in Christendom were, and still are, the 
feuds which obtained, and still obtain, within his 
own communion, as for instance between the Domi- 
nicans and the Franciscans, and between both of 
these and the Jesuits. When an infallible Pope 



40 KOMANISM I. 

burned a lot of Franciscans, was he then act- 
ing under divine guidance ? 

One point more: — It is hardly necessary 
that I should do more than mention the politi- 
cal menace which these dogmas present to every 
country, and to none more than to our own. 
Here is where Rome has her power. It is not 
in the doctrine of Transubstantiation, though 
to hear people, who are wild on this subject, 
you would really think that that was the only 
serious evil in the Roman Catholic Church. 
She knows well how to draw fire and dissipate 
attack. Just so long as she can get Protes- 
tants to quarrel over the metaphysical points 
in the doctrines of Transubstantiation and Pur- 
gatory, she will not worry herself; she is 
drawing off your thought from those themes 
which, pondered on, might startle thought. 

To learn that there is a supreme power which 
has such sway over conscience in matters that 
do not concern religion, as that it may oblige 
a man on peril of his salvation to speak and 
act in ordinary and worldly affairs as he may 
be dictated to by this huge, overshadowing 
authority ; is not this, I ask, a menace to 
liberty? 

Well, the histories of the past show how 
that supremacy was wielded ; and it is the 
boast of the Romanist that his Church has 
never abandoned a single prerogative. He be- 
lieves that that right is hers now. To stand 
by the Royalties of S. Peter is a part of the 
oath of every bishop of her communion, 
though he be an American citizen, and in the 
very nature of things, it makes every Roman 



ROMANISM L 43- 

Catholic a citizen, first of Home, and afterwards, 
if Borne do not direct otherwise, of the partic- 
ular country in which he lives. 

Let ns for a brief moment suppose that the 
growth of Boman Catholic influence should be 
as great in the next fifty years as in the fifty 
years past, what will become of you, poor Prot- 
estants, who have no common standing ground 
among yourselves ? You would rather strug- 
gle over the unknowable and wearisome doc- 
trines of Election and Predestination ; over 
the form of Baptism, or some other little ques- 
tion, than to unite yourselves in the only way 
and with the only Body that holds the key of 
the situation, against a foe and a power with 
which you may be likely brought, one day, face 
to face, in bloody war ! I say, when you rec- 
ollect that every Boman Catholic man will in 
all human probability vote as his bishop di- 
rects, and the bishop will vote as the Pope 
directs, and that he will also very likely fight 
for that for which he votes, you have the 
argument. 



li. 

(Romaniettw 

(2). 

In the former lecture on the subject which I am 
about to treat to-night, I dwelt at length on the 
doctrines of Papal Supremacy and Papal Infalli- 
bility, because in my judgment they are the more 
monstrous of the errors of Rome/ and all other 
errors, doctrinal and practical, may be said to have 
their root in them. For this reason: — If I shall 
speak of a doctrine, which it is plain is erroneous 
either as to its original conception, or as to the ap- 
pearance which it now presents alter undergoing a 
process of development familiar to theologians of 
the Roman Catholic communion, I will be met at 
once ana estopped by the statement " It is set forth 
on the authority of the Pope, and the Pope is in 
fallible, and therefore is not to be questioned. 1 ' It 
some practice of the Roman Catholic communion 
shall seem to be offensive to the truth of Christian 
doctrine or to the purity of the Christian faith I 
shall also be estopped by the statement, ' ' but it 
has the consent and approval of the Pope, and the 
Pope is infallible; and whether he be or be not su- 
preme in temporal things he ought to be and is in 
spiritual things." 

Now to-night I want to say something in regard 
to some other doctrines and practices of that com- 
munion. Let me refresh your minds as to some- 
thing which I said upon a former occasion to this 
effect. The Roman theologians have away of mix- 
ing things together, the true and the false, so that 
while they are seeming to deline truth which no 
one doubts, they are inculcating the false. While 



44 ROMANISM. II. 

appearing to define what is old and venerable, and 
has the consent of Catholic antiquity, under cover 
of that they are introducing things new and un- 
known either to the primitive age or to the centu- 
ries immediately succeeding that age. 

Take for instance that view of the Holy Eucha- 
rist which by Roman theologians is denominated 
Transubstantiation. In any exposition of that 
doctrine which 1 have seen in any Roman Catholic 
work of late years, I find that more than four-fifths 
of the argument is devoted to proving the doctrine 
of the Real Presence of Our Blessed Lord under 
the forms of bread and wine, which no true Chris- 
tian disbelieves. Under cover of setting forth this 
doctrine plainly, asserting it in the language ol the 
fathers, by a dexterous twist of the theological 
wrist it is made to appear that Transubtantiation 
and it are identical. Let me see if I can make the 
distinction between these as clear as such a subject 
permits me. 

There are three views commonly held with regard 
to the Holy Eucharist. One is the view entertained 
by sectarians generally. I say generally, because 
ihe Lutheran body has a view of its own. The 
other is the view held by the Roman Catholics of 
the present day. The third is the view taught by 
the Catholic Church in all ages of the world, not 
the Roman Catholic but the Catholic Church, you 
understand. The view, of which I need not say 
much now. of the sectarians is, that the Lord's 
Supper is merely a commemorative rite. A feast 
instituted on the night in which Our Lord was be- 
trayed, surrounded by memories of Himself and 
His loved and loving Disciples; the last feast that 
Our Lord and His Apostles had together before He 
entered into His agony, and therefore very dear to 
them. As often as the Lord's Supper is celebrated 
in the religious houses of these people, they call to 
mind, doubtless, the sufferings and death of Our 
Lord, and what He did for men. And it is a siijn 



ROMANISM. II. 46 

and token of love and friendship that Christian 
people ought to have for each other. It is there- 
fore invested with a great deal of sacredness, but 
its most sacred aspect falls very far short of what 
the Catholic Church intends. 

The Roman Catholic communion holds now, that 
in the Lord's Supper by command of our Divine 
Redeemer, the bread and wine cease to exist. The 
substance of the bread and the substance of the 
wine disappear, are removed, and in the place there- 
of comes the physical Body, Blood, Soul and Di- 
vinity of Jesus Christ. That what appears on the 
Altar is appearance merely, and not reality in any 
sense. That the substance has departed, and only 
what scientific people, let us say metaphysical peo- 
ple, call the accidents or appearances or phenomena 
which attach to substance, remain. Thus while 
the consecrated Species undergoes no change which 
is apparent to the eye in shape or in color, or to 
the taste, or by feeling, or to the sense of smell by 
odour, nevertheless these have no essential pro- 
perties of themselves but are simply accidents, 
ghosts of what was once bread and what was once 
wine, but which are not so any longer. Now I am 
stating exactly the position. This view of the Ro- 
man Catholic communion was never heard of before 
the year 850. The term Transubstantiation was 
never employed until the beginning of the thir- 
teenth century at the fourth Lateran Council in the 
year 1215. Up to that time all Catholic theolo- 
gians united in declaring that under the form or 
veils of bread and wine were the Lord's Body 
and Blood, but that the bread remained bread in 
all its natural and essential qualities, and the wine 
remained wine. The distinction of accidents and 
substance vrere never heard of. The bread was 
uot mere bread, as the sectarians taught; the wine 
was not mere wine; Iml under their form or veil 
was the Body and Blood of Christ, incomprehensible 
to the human mind, but yet really and truly there, 



4tf ROMANISM. II. 

sacrainentally present. Of course the introduction 
of the word itself caused a great deal of contro- 
versy. It required all the authority which Rome 
possessed to establish the word itself. 

Now let me see if I can in a few words give you 
some idea of what may be called accidents and sub- 
stance. Of course I am speaking to those of you 
who have not thought much about the matter. 
For instance I say of this wood that it is loug, dark, 
hard. But these terms are only qualities applied 
to that which is, but which are not themselves the 
substance of the wood which is itself long, dark or 
hard. Now it is utterly incredible, it is absolutely 
unthinkable that a substance shall disappear and 
leave its qualities behind. That shadow shall ex- 
ist where there is no substance to cause the shadow. 
It is equally unthinkable that qualities shall appear 
where there is no substance. Whichever way you 
treat it it is simply dumbfounding that a substance 
shall be without its appropriate qualities, or that 
qualities shall be without the appropriate substance 
which is the cause of them. For if it be insisted 
that the flesh which walked in Galilee, the hands 
that blessed children, the feet that were weary and 
sore, the body that was hungered and tortured is 
present upon the Altar in all ways just as when our 
L<ud was on earth, then we are to suppose that 
the accidents which belong to the bread, and the 
accidents which belong to the wine, that is, color, 
taste and smell have attached themselves to entire- 
ly foreign substances of which they were not the 
proper accidents. Such a thing was never heard 
of until the thirteenth century, and there is not a 
father of the Church of the ante-Nicene or immedi- 
ate post-Xicene days that ever dreamed of suggest- 
ing such a preposterous doctrine, which is now 
taught to so many millions of our fellow citizens. 
For mark you* it destroys in itself the notion ol 
sacrament. A sacrament is that thing which 
has an outward and visible part, and an inward 



ROMANISM. II. 47 

and spiritual grace given unto it. The two things 
must be present throughout the whole offering, and 
they must remain present throughout the whole of- 
fering. If the outward and visible part disap- 
pears — and certainly the outward and visible part 
never was intended by ancient theologians to be 
separated into two things, substance and accidents 
— if the outward and visible part of the Lord's 
Supper, which is the bread and wine disappear, 
cease to be, then there is no sacrament, which is 
the union of both parts and which must be there, 
and must be there throughout the offering. 

The doctrine of the Real Presence of our Lord's 
Body and Blood is one which perfectly fulfils the 
requirements of Catholic theology. The Church does 
not pretend to explain how our Blessed Lord is pres- 
ent, but firmly believes in that adorable presence. 
The difficulty with sectarians is, that doing away 
with Our Lord's presence, the mystery in the sa- 
crament is destroyed ; for there is no mystery in 
eating bread and wine, there is no mystery in bread 
and wine being set apart for some holy or devout 
purpose where that purpose is distinctly declared 
to be merely a sign and seal of the love and friend- 
ship which Christian people have for each other. 

On the other hand the Roman Catholics err just 
as grievously in taking away all mystery from the 
Blessed Sacrament, and explaining absolutely and 
positively and precisely how it has pleased Al- 
mighty God to cause His Divine Son to be present 
upon the altar. Now the true Catholic Church has 
never presumed to look into that mystery. It has 
left the matter just where it was left by the Apos- 
tles and the earliest Fathers. There is the bread 
and wiue. They remain bread and wine as to 
their natural properties. They are not merely or 
only bread and wine. But in an inconceivable way 
God has beneath their form or veil granted the 
presence of His Divine Son's Body and Blood to 
refresh the souls and bodies of His people as the 



48 ROMANISM. II. 

body is refreshed and strengthened by bread and 
wine. 

Another point is this, although I dislike very 
much to go into it. The accidents or appearances 
of a thing cannot possibly be affected by change. 
It would be absolutely impossible to corrupt color, 
or odour, or shape ; vet even the consecrated Spe- 
cies may be corrupted. For that is why the Roman 
Catholic Church herself requires that to avoid such 
chance it shall be changed at certain periods. 
Moreover, it is impossible I think to suppose that 
color can undergo digestion, or that form can un- 
dergo digestion, or that odour can undergo diges- 
tion. At all events our scientists have been una- 
ble to discover that such takes place. But the 
Blessed Sacrament does undergo digestion. And 
therein of course lies an argument absolutely fata\ 
to the Roman Catholic position. 

Another point with regard to the doctrine of the 
Lord's Supper although not immediately related to 
Transubstantiation must be mentioned. It is now 
the habit of our Roman Catholic brethren to withhold 
the Cup from the laity. The most fanciful reasons 
have been given for this. I Bay again that this is an 
entirely new idea. It was never heard of until the 
thirteenth century. Communion in both kinds for 
the laity as well as for the Celebrant was the uni- 
versal habit of the Church up to the twelfth cen- 
tury. The reasons which have been given for with- 
drawing the Cup from the laity are very peculiar, 
and by the way they are not universally held by all 
theologians, Roman Catholic theologians, I mean. 
One is that it was not necessary as the whole Christ 
was contained in either of the Species whether 
bread or wine. The second was that it would be 
distasteful to a large body of communicants to 
drink from the same chalice. Another was that 
for the numerous communicants in iarge cities suf- 
ficient wine could not be obtained. Another and 
one most frequently urged, and perhaps the one 



ROMANISM. II. 49 

with the best show of reason on its side, is that 
there would be a very great danger when commu- 
nicating a large number that some of the precious 
Blood might "be spilled. Well, now, there are 
many priests in the Anglican communion through- 
out the world who communicate large numbers of 
people. Speaking for myself, I communicate on an 
average three hundred a month. I recall no in- 
stance in twenty-five years in which one single drop 
was ever spilled, or in which the slightest irrever- 
ence ever occurred. It is quite possible to suppose 
instances where the precious Blood might be spil- 
led, and equally so by the priest at the altar as by 
the people at tbe rail. But no one supposes, I 
think, that Almighty God would charge with crime 
such inadvertent spilling of the sacred Species. 
Now communicating in one kind was made a law 
for the first time at the Council of Constance in the 
year 1414. 

Anothe doctrine is the Immaculate Conception 
of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and united with it, 
what is called the Cultus of the Virgin Mary. 

I know that no priests or people in the world can 
give greater reverence to the Mother of God than 
the priests and people of the Anglican communion. 
Wo set apart days in her honor. We. hold her to 
be first among women, blessed among women ; full 
of grace, highly favored by Almighty God. Every 
epithet of reverence, proper reverence, that we can 
think of, is given to her. I do not know that we 
ever say the name without a species of reverence, 
veneration and honor for the very first among wo 
men. More beautiful than Eve. But it was nevei 
the teaching of the Catholic Church that the 
Blessed Virgin herself was conceived without sin. 
For many years the opinion that she was born 
without sin gained ground in pious hearts; per- 
haps in those holy souls whose love ran away with 
their judgment. And as it was a pious opinion 
merely, I will not spend myself against it. 



50 ROMANISM. II. 

That by the operation of the Holy Ghost when onr 
Lord was conceived in her womb she was cleansed 
from every sin, I would have no hesitation in teach- 
ing if it were necessary to salvation. But no truth 
connected with any human being is necessary to 
eternal salvation, except our Blessed Lord of 
course, for He was human. Therefore the Church 
wisely refrained from making matters of faith 
those things which had no immediate relation to 
our eternal salvation. 1 hat our Blessed Lord's 
mother always remained a virgin 1 am perfectly 
willing to believe and would be, if necessary, per- 
fectly willing to teach, repudiating as without suf- 
ficient foundation the statement that she had other 
children after our Divine Lord. For myself I do 
not believe she had. And although there is nothing 
on one side or the other in Catholic antiquity which 
can be called proof, in the one way or the other, 
yet, nevertheless, to my mind, and I should think 
to the minds of devout men, it would seem very 
proper that our Blessed Lord's mother should re- 
tain her virginity. But observe the doctrine of the 
Immaculate Conception has nothing to do with the 
conception or with the birth of our Lord but solely 
with the Virgin herself. No promise was made in 
Holy Scripture that any ordinary human being 
should be conceived without sin. If she wero con- 
ceived without sin she would not be in the line of 
human nature. She would have been a miracle, 
and no hint of that comes to us either in Scripture 
or history or by the voice of the Church. But you 
will perceive that the whole cultus of the blessed 
Virgin, as it now stands in the Roman Catholic 
communion, is built up upon that idea. Destroy 
the dogma and the worship disappears, because 
that is the ground upon which prayers are directed 
to her, and her help sought for, by direct prayer, 
even more than the help of her Divine Son is sought 
by prayer. There are two distinct ways in which 
the cultus of the blessed Virgin is spoken of. One 



ROMANISM. II. 5J 

as it appears in theological booke of the Roman 
Catholic communion and the other as it appears in 
popular use among the people of that communion. 

When some statement is made by one who op- 
poses the undue homage which is paid to the 
Blessed Virgin, one is immediately brought face to 
face with the statement that the Roman Catholic 
Church abhors idolatry, and that to give the 
Blessed Virgin the worship that is due to God 
would be idolatry. 

I cordially acknowledge that this latter state- 
ment is true, but there is a peculiar refinement 
here which is entirely unknown to the popular 
mind. 

There are three classes of worship : Latria, Dulia 
and Hyperdulia. Latria is that worship which is 
supposed to be given to the Godhead alone. Dulia 
is that homage which is paid to the saints. Hy- 
perdulia, that which is given to the blessed Virgin 
herself. But I defy any man to find in the language 
which is directed to God and that directed to the 
Blessed Virgin, or in the language which is em- 
ployed of God and of the Blessed Virgin, in the or- 
dinary books of devotion, in sermons, in medita- 
tions, by writers on spiritual things, I say, I defy 
anyone to find any distinction whatever. The very 
language which is applied to God and to our Divine 
Lord is applied also to the Blessed Virgin. And 
in one instance I know of a psalm that has been 
deliberately rearranged so that the language which 
is there mysticaly used of our Divine Lord isused 
for the Blessed Virgin. 

Now, that this may not seem to be altogether my 
own judgment, I have here in my hand a beautiful 
book, "Notes on Doctrinal and Spiritual Subjects/' 
by Faber, one of the loveliest men I suppose that 
ever lived. A beautiful soul, a poetic soul. You 
know that hymn of his which we sing so much : 

"My God how wonderful Thou art 
Thy majesty how bright." 



52 BOMANISM. II. 

His tongue must have been like the tongue of St. 
Chrysostom the golden mouthed. His meditations 
are most touching and many of them most helpful. 
Change the direction of some of them and I can 
think of nothing in the English language more po- 
etic, more devotional, marred only by the awful 
blasphemy that underlies them when such language 
is employed of any child of man. Now in this first 
volume, one section of the book is devoted to Our 
Blessed Lady, and is entitled, ■ The Devotion of Man 7 
the Great Gift of Jesus. " Of course I do not propose 
to read it all to you, but I want to read you some 
of the headings. Under the heading lt Devotion to 
Mary the Great Gift of Jesus," in the opening of 
the book, the meditation goes on to say, "He has 
one gift, an immense gift, of huge importance for 
time, and still more for eternity, not only an im- 
mense gift, but a choice one, one that He gives 
most of to His dearest saints, this gift is the grace 
to love His mother. If we did but prize and value 
this grace as we ought to prize it, as He himself 
prizes it we should already be half way to heaven, 
because we should have half insured our final per- 
severance. n ' 4 Dearest brethren, " he says in closing 
this meditation, "there can be no repentance in 
heaven else when we see Mary we shall wish we 
had known her better, prayed to her oftener and 
loved her more; for we shall see brighter places 
than our own, further forward in the glory of 
Heaven, where we might have been had we loved 
her more.'' The next is entitled "Mary the 
Mother of Saints," and these are the points of the 
meditation : "The dreadful condition of a man not 
in a condition of grace. Cut off from God, having 
no part in the Redemption of Jesus, the sport of 
demons, etc. One thing is still left to him, the 
motherly solicitude of Mary. This is hi3 hope, his 
treasure, his latt resource." 

The third chapter is entitled, "Mary the Safety 
of Souls." One part of the meditation is showing 



ROMANISM. II. 58 

God's love of souls. The third part is "What 
Mary Does for Souls, by what she suffered, by her 
example, by her conversion of sinners, by means 
of missions and scapulars and medals, by perfec- 
tion of the saints and by the religious orders she 
has founded either by visions or by love, by her 
peculiar winningness and familiarity as the mother 
of Mercy. The way she uses her angels on behalf 
of souls and pursues them into Purgatory. She is 
the neck of the Mystical Body of Christ, all graces 
pass through her." The next chapter is " Onr 
Dependence on Mary. " 

Let me take another book. This is the Catholic's 
Vade Mecum, a select manual of prayers set forth 
with the permission and approval of the Archbishop 
of Baltimore, also endorsed by the Bishop of Rich- 
mond, Virginia. The "Rosary of the Blessed Vir- 
gin, which is a devotion, takes up a meditation 
upon the first of the five joyful mysteries. After 
the exhortation to the contemplation of this par- 
ticular mystery, the Annunciation, follows : Our 
Father, ten Hail Marys and Glory be to the Father, 
and then this prayer. u O, Holy Mary, Queen of 
Virgins, through the most high mystery of the In- 
carnation of thy Beloved Son Our Lord Jesus Christ, 
wherein our salvation was begun, obtain for us 
through thy most holy intercession light to under- 
stand the greatness of the benefit He hath bestowed 
upon us in vouchsafing to become our brother, and 
giving thee. His own beloved mother to become our 
mother also." And so on prayer after prayer ad- 
dressed to her as the spotless mirror of humility, 
addressed to her direct and not to Our Blessed Lord 
Himself nor to God the Father. 

Now this doctrine of the Immaculate Conception 
was one to cause a great deal of controversy in the 
Church. The Franciscans and the Dominicans 
were at drawn swords. The matter could not be 
settled by the Council of Trent. It was set forth 
for the first time in 1854, thirty odd years ago. 



64 ROMANISM. II. 

Here I may mention that I received a communi- 
cation to-day asking something about scapulars, 
and I presumed the person desired that something 
should be said on this subject, as to whether it was 
true that Roman Catholics believed that the wear- 
ing ot scapulars preserved them from bodily dan- 
ger or saved them from danger. I reply it is true 
that they so believe and teach that such is the case. 

Now let us take up the subject of Purgatory and 
incidentally Indulgences. Here again there is the 
mixing of the true and the false. Catholic theology 
always recognized and used prayers for the dead 
and incorporated such in all ancient liturgies. 
There is no reason why we should not pray for the 
dead. One of the dearest desires of my heart is 
satistied in the prayers for the dead which are of- 
fered from time to time in our communion. But 
the prayer that God will increase to His faithful 
departed, light, refreshment and peace is one thing, 
and the Roman Catholic doctrine concerning Pur- 
gatory is an entirely different thing. The Roman 
Catholics are more closely allied to the sectarians 
in the notions which they entertain of the future 
world than to the teachings of the Catholic Church. 

Now those for whom the ancient Catholic Church 
prayed were persons whom they believed had de- 
parted hence "in the Lord." Those who are 
blessed in the Lord. Their prayers were not to 
Almighty God on behalf of these souls because the> 
were sinners, but because having been saved by 
gract they desired for them that increase of happi- 
ness which God vouchsafes until the day when their 
bliss shall be consummated. A most comfortable, 
beautiful doctrine as the Church holds it. Those 
who have passed away with the Sign of Faith have 
gone into the land of peace, the Paradise where 
Our Blessed Lord's Soul went after He had been 
crucified upon the Cross, they are gaining more 
and more of the light and knowledge, the sweet- 
ness and fulness which comes to enfranchised 



ROMANISM. II. 55 

spirits separated from the impediments of the 
body. That is a most comforting doctrine. There 
are our children and our loved ones as the days go 
by to us, learning more and more of that love of 
God which passeth understanding, and drinking 
deeply of that inexhaustible cup of divine know- 
ledge, and divine grace, which is freely offered 
them in that land " which no mortal may know.'' 
Yes, this is a most beautiful doctrine ; but this is not 
the Roman Catholic doctrine concerning Purgatory. 

The Roman Catholic doctrine concerning Purga- 
tory is, that there is a place into which, souls go 
who have not paid all the penalties for sins that 
have been committed in this life, and where they 
are tormented by fire which differs in no sort from 
the torments of Hell, the place of final punishment, 
in any other way than as to duration. The one is 
eternal, the other is not. 

In regard to this there are only a couple of pas- 
sages in Holy Scripture which are produced to 
support it and which have no bearing whatever 
upon the subject. It was an innovation which 
grew to the Church just like the doctrines of which 
I have been speaking, and out of it there arose 
that system of Indulgences which brought about 
the awful schism in Germany so fatal to the peace 
and happiness of the Church ever since. 

The doctrine of Indulgences is defined to be, 
" That out of the treasury of the infinite merits of 
Christ, and the super-abundant merits of the saints, 
the Pope by the power invested in him as succes- 
sor of St. Peter, can transfer to human souls such 
merits as they may acquire by performing certain 
duties to which these merits or indulgences are at- 
tached. " Of course you will perceive at once that 
it is taken for granted that the saints did more 
than was needed for their own salvation. That it 
was perfectly possible for a human being to do not 
only such good works on this earth as would merit 
his salvation at God's hands, but that he should 



56 ROMANISM. II. 

also do such other and unnecessay good works as 

might be put to the credit of poor human souls in 
the treasury of Heaven. 

Now suppose that was true— which of course it is 
not; it was utterly unknown to antiquity— but sup- 
posing it to be true the next point is, that out of 
this treasury the Pope and the Pope alone, has the 
right to take merits and apply them to certain in- 
dividuals whom he knows or does not know. And 
in fact these merits are drawn out of this treas- 
ury with his knowledge and yet without his know- 
ledge. Observe, they cannot be taken from this 
treasury without his authority. He alone has 
power to transfer them to human souls. But all 
over the world everywhere, here in Louisville to- 
night souls are appropriating these merits to them- 
selves, gaining certain indulgences and the Pope 
does not know of it. Then he must be using the 
keys of the treasury in a very remarkable manner. 
He must, in the ages away back, have unlocked 
this treasury and left it open so that every body 
could help himself. Because you will observe, 
there are hundreds and hundreds yea, thousands 
of cases to which indulgences are applied and 
which are entirely at the will of the individual who 
chooses to take them. There is not a book of devo- 
tion in the Roman Catholic Church which has not 
some statement of this nature: "For the use of 
this prayer (so many times) an indulgence of one 
hundred days is granted.'' '-For the use of this 
prayer (so many times) an indulgence of forty years 
will be granted." or "If this particular prayer be 
read at a particular place or time, five hundred 
years' indulgence will be granted." What does 
that mean ? You see how one could manage. A 
Roman Catholic could start in the morning after 
confession, and by a skillful use of his time in a 
city blessed with many altars which have indul- 
gences attached, he might put to his credit thous- 
ands of years before night. What does that mean? 



B0MA3ISM. II. 67 

Why it means, as per Roman theology, that ac- 
cording to the ancient discipline of the Church, 
had it been put in force, a man for a particular sin 
might have incurred a hundred days penance, or a 
hundred years penance if you can fancy such a 
penance, but that, by the use of this particular 
prayer that penalty is thereby remitted and the over- 
plus of days or years is put to his credit. But a 
man you perceive, can in a few hours place to his 
own credit not only a hundred days, or two hun- 
dred days, or five hundred days, but he can put to 
his credit a thousand years. 

And now, while of course any modern Roman 
Catholic utterly repudiates the idea of persons pay- 
ing for these Indulgences, yet what caused the 
Revolutiou in Germany and indeed gave birth to 
this modern repudiation ? I think you know very 
well, at least those of you who hear me often, that 
I am not in love with Martin Luther, and no one 
would accuse me of sitting up at night studying a 
meditation upon the beauties of his character. But 
what was it that stopped the sale of Indulgences ? 
For all history must be false if they have never been 
sold. Our Roman Catholic theologians have a way 
of inventing history which is very remarkable. 
These Indulgences were sold as every body knows 
that knows anything. They were the cause that is, 
the sale of them, was the cause of the greatest 
scandal in Christendom. If there can be any excuse 
for the wrongs which that man brought upon the 
Chui ch and upon the world it was to be found in 
the system of Indulgences, in regard to which no 
Catholic theologian knew anything in the days of 
antiquity. 

I think that I have now covered all the ground 
that I intend to cover. May I say a word with 
regard to the true Catholic Church now that I have 
finished with, I will not say the false, but the 
stained Catholic Church. 1 had occasion when 
opening my sermon on this subject to say all the 



58 ROMANISM. II. 

good that I could think about the Catholic part ol 
the Roman Catholic Church. Were it not that she 
has a Catholic side, the world would have risen 
long since against her. But she has a Catholic 
side, a most beautiful Catholic side, and sad it is 
that she presents to us the strange appearance of a 
lovely creature united — let us hope not for life — to 
an awful monster. It is only by what she calls the 
''doctrine of development" that she has ever 
reached her present position. There is a true de- 
velopment and there is also (and this unfortunately 
is what has come to the Roman Catholic Church) 
a false development. There is that development, 
as one says, by which the face of the child broad- 
ens into the face of the man, the natural develop- 
ment of the flower from its own particular bud. 
But the development of which the Church of Rome 
is the champion, no, I mean the Roman Church 
(there is a very great difference between the Church 
of Rome and the Roman Church) the development 
I say of which the Roman Church is the champion, 
is the development which gives us three eyes, two 
noses, or seven fingers. Not the natural orderly 
development from what was there before, but the 
unnatural development, if it can be so called, of 
adding something heretofore unknown to what was 
well known. 

Now there is another picture that my soul de- 
lights to honor. The Catholic Church whose every 
word to-day is fragrant with the odor of true Cath- 
olic antiquity. Whose every act is set forth in the 
most beautiful age of the Church the age that was 
fruitful of saints. A liturgy so beautiful, so digni- 
fied, so refining that it is not excelled by any on the 
face of the earth. A Ministry that comes down to 
us from the beginning, with Sacraments pure and 
undefiled. She stands before the people of this coun- 
try midway between Romanism and Protestantism. 
She says to the bewildered sects on the one hand, 
" Here is a center of unity strong with authority, 



ROMANISM. II. &9 

beautiful with a service in a tongue < understanded 
.1 the people,' graced with all the divine Sacra* 
inents duly and properly administered." And to 
Rome, on the other hand, she presents a picture of 
what Rome herself was in the seventh, and sixth, 
and fifth, and fourth centuries of the Christian era. 
The Roman Catholic theologian can see the picture 
of his own Church more certainly and more per- 
fectly in the Auglican Communion to-day, than he 
cau in the modern Roman Catholic Church whic\ 
is just as unlike the Catholic Church of the seventh, 
sixth, and fifth centuries as earth is unlike Heaven. 
One word and I am done. Some people have 
been kind enough to send me in the last three or 
four days something in the neighborhood of twenty- 
five or thirty communications. Very kind of them 
I am sure and I fully appreciate it. Some of them 
are earnest appeals for my safety. I return heart- 
felt thanks. Some are praying for me. I beg to 
say that I desire the prayers of all good people. I 
will be very glad to have the prayers of the saints, 
too. I pray God to give me every help in every 
way myself. Let my good friends who were good 
enough to sign their names to the letters which 
have been sent me take this, and what I have said 
before, as my reply. I am a very busy man just 
now, 1 would not like to do you the discourtesy of 
not replying to your letters, but it would occupy 
me more days than I have at my disposal. I thank 
you for your attention to-night. This is by no 
means pleasant work to me, bnt it is a needed 
work, and as done for God and His Church I may 
humbly hope to have His blessing as I pray for His 
help. 



Note. — This additional lecture was delivered the 
fourth in order on Wednesday, March 27, but is 
printed here for the sake of convenience to the 
reader. 



IV. 

I am not bound in honor or in courtesy, to notice 
the numerous communications which have reached 
me during the week, and, yet, as I gather from 
one of them that the writer will be here to-day, I 
desire to say (whether it be man or woman I can- 
not tell ; I am not accustomed to deal with persons 
who do not give their names) that it is very far 
lrom my intention, the very farthest from my inten- 
tion, to deliver sensational addresses. If there is 
one thing that my soul abhors in him who minis- 
ters at the Altar, it is mere sensationalism ; and 
God forbid that I should lend myself for one moment 
co what might be justly called sensationalism. I 
simply notified my congregation that I intended to 
dwell upon certain features of sectarianism lor their 
instruction and warning. I made no extraordinary 
effort to bring the matter into public notice. Had 
I desired to create a sensation only I might have 
done so by announcing that I would lecture on Rob- 
ert Elsmere, Daniel Deronda, Shakspeare, or any 
of the vulgarities in which Protestant ministers 
delight to indulge. But, for myself, I esteem my 
high calling so far above the sensational monstrosi- 
ties of the day, that to speak the truth of God in 
the name of God, is greater to me than all the ap- 
plause of men, aye, or than all the scorn of men. 
I am here simply to speak what I do know and to 
make effort to settle the faith, so far as that may 
be done by man, of those for whose souls I must 
give account to Almighty God. For the rest — the 
others who come— well, I shall be glad if they shall 
learn in any way. 
I am to-day to meet the charge of arrogance, ex- 



12 PRE8BYTERIANISM. 

clusiveness, and uncharitabieness so vigorously 
hurled at the Church by Presbyterians. Last Sun- 
day when I spoke about our Roman Catholic breth- 
ren I had, I presume, the general consent of those 
who heard me, because Protestantism, foolishly 
euough, prides itself upon the fact that whatever 
else it is. it is not Roman Catholic, thank God. 
Protestantism may be wrong, very wrong, but it 
blesses God that at all events, no matter into what 
error it may fall, it is not Roman Catholic. And 
that reminds me of the cry of the Pharisee who 
thanked God that he was not an extortioner, nor 
unjust, nor proud, nor an adulterer, nor even like 
the Publican. The sins of extortion, of pride, and 
adultery were minor sins iu his judgment perhaps 
to the sin of being like this Publican. And that is 
the position which Protestants appear to hold to- 
wards Roman Catholics. I want to say right now 
that I do not share that feeling at all. That I am 
not a Roman Catholic is because of the Romanisms 
of that Church. That I am a Catholic is most un- 
doubtedly true. But as between being Roman 
Catholic, were the compulsion laid upon me, and 
being a member of any of the Protestant sects, 
God who knows my heart knows that between these 
two I should undoubtedly be a Roman Catholic. I 
could be a Romau Catholic. I never could be a 
sectarian. I>ow that is plain and I hope that it is 
perfectly satisfactory. The Roman Catholic Church 
is the common prey of Protestant Christianity. It 
has a thousand virtues which are not heeded. It 
has a few faults which are very much heeded. Be- 
cause of its thousand virtues I can love it ; because 
of its few faults I am opposed to its Romanism. 
Nevertheless, were the struggle to come between 
Catholicism, pure or impure, and sectarianism, I 
am on the side of Catholicism, because on that side 
is Christ, on that side are the holy Angels, on that 
side all antiquity is arrayed. On the other side 
there is nothing but humanity — men and very weak 



. PRESBYTERIANISM. 63 

men at that. Now I am about to assail the founda- 
tion of Protestant sects, and first must pay atten- 
tion to the spirit of Sectism in general. 

I begin with Presbyterianism for several reasons 
although she is not the first chronologically, yet in 
point of influence, in point of education, in point 
of number, Presbyterianism may be ranked first, 
and certainly she is the fruitful mother that has 
given birth to a whole swarm of very pestilent 
sects. Out of her pregnant womb came forth a 
multitude of bodies that in the past three hundred 
and odd years have lifted their heel against their 
mother, just as she despised and rejected the womb 
that gave her rebellious people Christian birth. 
She, primarily, is responsible for the chief defec- 
tions from Christianity ; she, primarily, is responsi- 
ble for the infidelity of the day; she, primarily, is 
responsible for the utter denial of Christianity that 
has come to so many children in the years that 
have gone by as in the present. 

We are a people who live very much in the pres- 
ent. Our knowledge comes to us in newspaper ar- 
ticles, and in pamphlets, and in isolated scraps 
from here and there. We are a busy people, a peo- 
ple who cannot take time to go down to the roots 
of things, or to read very closely for ourselves. We 
are a people who trust, more than perhaps any 
other people, in our clergymen, and our clergyman 
doles oat to us from the first Sunday in January un- 
til the last Sunday in December pleasant little es- 
says on religious matters that nobody ever dreamed 
of denying, when he does not deal in generalities 
or sensationalisms. The years come and go ana 
we find ourselves no further on the road to knowl- 
edge than we were years ago. There are gray 
headed men that I am talking to now, who cannot 
say conscientiously that they know one whit more 
about the teachings of the religious body to which 
they are attached, than they did thirty or forty years 
ago. There are old gray headed men here who re- 



H4 PRESRYTERIANISM. 

member that there was a time when they took 
some interest in controversial questions, but now all 
is past and they are simply content to float down 
the stream until death puts an end to their ques- 
tionings, and the dawn of a new morning ushers 
them into the place where there are no question 
ings. Aud yet all around them are strong men, 
and young men, and even more than this, women, 
who are to be mothers of children, who are dis- 
tracted by the different and conflicting voices of 
Christendom. They ask, as Pilate asked, "What 
is truth ?" They speak, and, behold! the confusion 
of tongues which arises on every side! It is not 
one answer, as one would expect, to such a straight- 
forward, momentous question that meets them— 
but, behold, every sect which has a footing in the 
land has its own reply. Lo! here is Christ, lo! 
there is Christ! until bewildered, distracted, mad- 
dened almost, they know not where to turn nor to 
whom to give credence. Conflicting voices are in 
the air, and what determines them ? Is it the 
claims of religion conscientiously considered by 
them? Is it the conclusion that they have reached 
after careful search? Is it the utterance of what is 
called the infallible voice of God? No, no, none of 
these. They are determined in the education of 
their souls by friendship; by the genius oi the min- 
ister who speaks to them. They are determined in 
the education of their souls by family relations. 
They are determined in nuny instances, against 
the voices of their souls, by the rule of husband or 
wife. Is it any wonder, when some poor wife, who 
longs to train her children in the Christian religion 
and would desire, deeply desire, to train them in 
her own form of religion, is beset and crowded by 
the will of the husband that she loves, though she 
believes him to be mistaken — is it any wonder that 
she should arrange the instruction which she gives 
(if she give any) so that it may not be absolutely 
offensive on the one hand, nor yet on the other be 



PBESBYTEBIANI8M. 65 

absolutely declarative of anything? Is it any won- 
der that some poor woman who really longs for 
communion with God, and who greatly desires to 
bring her children up in the true faith, should seek 
such devious paths as to make it possible (poor, 
mistaken soul) to obtain the favor of God. and yet 
not lose the favor of her family? And how under 
such conflicting circumstances, can the truth be 
taught strongly or boldly? How is it possible to 
convey truth so that it shall be received without 
question and held firmly by children? Yet this is 
happening around us every day, and what is the 
result? We have as the result children who have 
grown up under this loose management, going now 
to their father's church and now to their mother's 
church holding the views of neither strongly, and 
by and by, when business separates them from 
their homes, and they must go out into the world 
to battle with it for themselves they absent them- 
selves from all religious worship, on the ground that 
everything has been higgledy-piggledy. There has 
been a sort of jumbling of ideas in their minds the 
result of which must be the anarchy of ideas, and 
each says to himself "I abandon the whole affair." 
I say that there is no minister of any religion in 
the land who has not had a similar experience to 
my own. To me, again and again, people have 
come and said : " My mother was a Churchwoman, 
my father was a Presbyterian. The result was, as 
they both were very much set in their ways I went 
with my father to the Presbyterian church in the 
morning and was compelled to spend Sunday after- 
noon learning the Shorter Catechism. In the even- 
iag I went with my mother to the Episcopal church. 
My father told me on Monday morning that the 
Episcopal church was all form and ceremony. And 
inasmuch as I saw lorm and ceremony there, I took 
him at his word. My mother told me that forms 
and ceremonies were God's way of embodying true 
religion in a pure body, just as the human soul is 



66 PRESBYTERIANISM. 

contained in the human body. Then I doubted 
somewhat my father's wisdom for I loved my mother. 
The next day my father assured me all was cola for- 
malism in the Episcopal Church and I fell into his 
belief. My mother assured me that underneath all 
these symbols and ceremonies there was a great 
deal to love and believe in, and even to become en- 
thusiastic over, and I remember that when I went 
into the Episcopal Church I felt very differently 
from the way in which I was affected when I went 
into a Presbyterian church. When I went iuto a 
Presbyterian church I looked around to greet ac- 
quaintances, there was a little buzz and stir, and 
the great occasion of the day was the preacher and 
the sermon. When I went into the Episcopal Church 
I remember the hush and solemnity that seemed to 
be upon the people, and my mother put her hand 
upon my arm and said, ' Be still : for yonder is 
God's Altar.' And so I oscillated between these 
two until, absolutely, there were no two consecu- 
tive days in the week when I knew what I was. A 
Presbyterian on Monday ; my mother talked to me 
and I was an Episcopalian on Tuesday. On Wed- 
nesday my father argued with me and I was a Pres- 
byterian again. On Thursday my mother talked 
with me again, and again I was an Episcopalian. 
When Sunday came my condition was if anything a 
little worse. A Presbyterian in the morning, and 
an Episcopalian in the evening. Now I have aban- 
doned all. I never hear sermons on these subjects. 
I am likely to go to my grave in doubt whether the 
Episcopal or the PresWterian is the worship of the 
Blessed Lord.'' Brethren, I believe I am using the 
language of your own thoughts. And if I have 
said '• Presbyterian" remember that I am talking 
about them to-day. Substitute your own religious 
name and you have the same argument. 

Now I want first of all to discharge myself of the 
thought of uncharitableness. It is said that I am 
waging war upon the " sects." Yes, please God, 



PRESBYTERIANISM. 67 

that is true. That is what I am here for. That is 
what I was ordained for. For the express purpose 
of driving away all erroneous and strange doctrine 
contrary to God's Word. I was commissioned for 
that purpose; and that is why I am living and 
working here. It is said that I am simply desiring 
to cast scorn upon the religious bodies that are all 
around us. No. I have no scorn for anybody. I 
have neither malice nor uncharitableness for any 
man. I am here to speak simply and truly the 
things that I do know. But there is no man I trust, 
please God, who would more reodily meet one who 
differs from him with the heart of love and the 
hand of fellowship than I would. Why, I was once 
a Methodist preacher myself. I know the loveli- 
ness of many Dissenters of almost every name. I 
know their sincerity, their truth, their worth. God 
forbid that I should have uncharitableness in my 
heart, and, above all things, God forbid that I 
should have malice. I am simply trying to do my 
duty according to the terms of the prayers offered 
here from day to day, and inasmuch as we pray 
that it may nlease God to lead into the way of truth 
all those who have erred and are deceived I am 
trying to accomplish that, in the very best way that 
I know. 

I >id it ever occur to you that at least a majority 
of the clergy of our Church in this country is drawn 
from the sects? I do not know how it may be to- 
day, because there has been a wonderful growth 
both as to communicants and ministers of our 
Church, but I do know that twenty-five years ago 
it was clearly shown that the majority of the clergy 
in our Church were once ministers of the various 
religious sects about us. 

If one enquire how many men educated in our 
ministry have become ministers of various religious 
bodies outside the Church he would have very little 
difficulty in discovering that they are very, very 
few, very few indeed. The ministry of our Church, 



til PRESBYTERIANI8M. 

or rather let me say, our Church herself, has had a 
most wonderful and attractive influence for men. 
Men have flocked to her under circumstances most 
unpropitious for themselves. Men who were occu- 
pying high positions elsewhere, who were deriving 
large incomes elsewhere, have voluntarily resigned 
their livings and come into the ministry of the 
Church, and been perfectly willing to take very 
humble places in her service, conscious that they 
were fulfilling the will of God, and that they were 
making the best proof of their ministry right there. 
Why is this? Why is it that men seek her and 
come to her from the various religious bodies 
around, while so few of our men go to them ? It is 
because there is a passionate longing in every hu- 
man heart for the definite and the positive. If any 
sect has grown it has been because of the urging 
of some definite, positive statement. Men have 
come to us because there was a settled position as- 
sumed, and positive statements made, with regard 
to faith and doctrines. We are dealing with tre- 
mendous issues and therefore we have no time in 
which to dissipate thought, and speak simply of 
generalities. The greatest foe we have to contend 
with to-day is the division within the Christian fold. 
Infidelity has no terror compared with this. Take 
up any newspaper of the day and you will see mul- 
titudes of senseless appeals made to Christian men, 
urging them to condone their differences, and unite 
for the overthrow of infidelity. Why infidelity is 
no foe. We are not afraid of theoretical infidelity. 
When a man tells me that he is an infidel, with that 
superior nineteenth century air so jauntily assumed, 
I regard him as I regard any other crank. I smile 
at him. When a man with an assumption of great 
knowledge tells me that, " Oh! well ! he has examined 
the whole Christian position and has dismissed it 
all as untrustworthy," I say to him, " My dear fel- 
low you are a great man! a very great man! The 
difficulty is that you were born fourteen or fifteen 



PEESBTTERUSISM. 09 

jandred years too late. At that time they might 
iave made a god of you. You would then have 
keen in your proper place. Remarkable fellow! So 
you do not believe iu a God. Marvellous man! I 
might ask how do you know there is not a God? 
The rest of mankind does believe and you do not • 
and you think you are a wonderful fellow!!! I do 
not. " I have exactly the same idea that the Psalm- 
ist had when he said, "The fool has said in his 
heart there is no God." I cannot take time to ar- 
gue with fools. No, I am not troubled by infidelity 
so much. That is not what chiefly troubles Chris- 
tian men, or ought to chiefly trouble Christian men 
just now. When I hear the many appeals coming 
from the papers and the pulpits of to-day, saying, 
"Oh! here in the presence of this awful infidelity, 
this dreadfu- agnosticism which is eating into the 
neart of Christian life, you ought to be united." I 
say: — What! Infidelity eating into the heart of 
Christian ^fe r Agnosticism eating into the heart of 
Christian hfc ? Poor little miserable creatures! If 
a million of them were put into a nutshell, as some 
one has said, they would not come within speaking 
distance of each other. Poor little idiots. Nobody 
need think anything about them at all. There are 
Infidels and infidels, but the nineteenth century has 
not begotten a new or more dreadful class than any 
other century, and we simply stultify ourselves when 
we speak with bated breath of the extraordinarily 
intelligent infidelity which is the peculiar product 
of this particular century. Why, in pity one might 
let them have their day. That is not what troubles 
a Christian man. In fact, agnostics are mere baga- 
telles to him ; and when you hear this cry in the 
newspapers and the pulpits of the day, it is some- 
thing to arouse your laughter and not your con- 
cern. The chief foe of Christendom (and we shoul.1 
fight only with the king), the one foe of Christen 
do* is the division in Christendom. Why, if Chi is 
tandom were united no foe could stand before kei 



70 PRESBYTERIAN ISM. 

to-day. She has education, she has influence, she 
has every resource on her side. United Christen- 
dom could do as she pleases with the world. But 
the foe of Christendom is division in her own house- 
hold. Trie father is against the son, the son is 
against the father, the mother disowns the child of 
her womb, the child his own mother. It is the jar- 
ring and conflicting voices of Christendom that ruin 
her enterprises and delay her hopes. 

Consider for a brief moment; The great God who 
is above all and looks down upon all men, hears the 
feeble men that here and there declare they do not 
believe in His existence. Well! well! I think to 
myself that the dear Lord looks with almost for- 
giveness upon them. He says " My children I do 
not wonder that you should be tossed about, I do 
not wonder that you should disbelieve And yet 
look at yourselves. What a very small fragment of 
the world you are !" Ah! that is not what troubles 
God I think. But looking down from Heaven upon 
multitudes of His Cross-signed people, scattered 
over various countries, and upon many continents, 
and in the islands of the ocean, to Him one people, 
to us of many nations, of many colors, of many 
kinds, to Him all one. He looks down upon them 
and sees Christian against Christian, Christian 
creed against Christian creed, Christian hand 
against Christian hand. His divine Word taken 
up by rival societies absolutely. Think of it. The 
Divine Word of God taken up by societies who are 
not merely not auxiliaries to each other, but literal- 
ly rivals of each other. He looks down upon His 
soldiery and sees dissension and mutiny and dismay 
through all their ranks. Imagine some general 
gifted with the ability to read the hearts of the 
multitude of all his soldiers scattered in various 
brigades, upon the field of battle, and to know the 
thoughts of their captains and officers; and discov- 
ering their plans to be utterly variant and at vari- 
ance with his; the only idea in common being that 



PRESBYTERIANISM. 71 

they can still fight while every man may choose his 
own way. What must be the result? 

Well "this is the picture of Christendom. The 
Presbyterians will only go out in this direction. 
The Methodists will only go out in that direction. 
The Baptists in this and the Lutherans in that di- 
rection; The Campbellites roam as guerrillas and 
bushwhackers, skirmishing around, heaven only 
knows where, and the Unitarians; well! what are 
they but spies and traitors. 

Smile as you please at the picture, this division is 
here, and this division is apparent. You know 
very well that there is no sort of real unity between 
the Christians of this city, or any other city. It 
becomes therefore a grave question for us to con- 
sider where in all these various bodies is there a 
centre of unity. 

I do not make the assertion which I am about to 
make, absolutely beyond fear of contradiction, but I 
make the assertion, and I think it will be uncontra- 
dicted, that outside of the Church of which I am a 
priest there is no religious body that makes it its duty 
to pray in terms from day to day for those who oppose 
it. I repeat the statement, that this Church offers 
here from day to day twice, yes, three times every- 
day, the prayer that God may bring into the way 
of truth all such as have erred and are deceived. 
And so I say I do not know of another religious 
body in this town that does this thing. 

So much in general on the spirit of Sectism. 
Now let me define Presbyterianism. I place Pres- 
byterianism first, becarse I think she is the mother 
of all wrong. I do not mind your smiling, if it is a 
relief. 

The term Presbyterian has sole relation to church 
government; although in these latter days it has 
come to be a name applied in the minds of many 
people, to a system of doctrine. The word Pres- 
byterian has sole relation to matters of church 
government. 



V2 PRESBYTBRIANISM. 

It was the teaching of Christ Himself, it is the 
teaching of the Catholic Church that the govern- 
ment and ministry of the Church is administered 
and exercised only by Bishops, Priests and Dea- 
cons. This second order which we call Priests is, 
sometimes though less properly called Presbyters. 
In the Prayer Book the word used is solely" Priest." 
But the term Presbyter has been used in history, 
and in Scripture too, and therefore I receive it. 
The government then, as it was set forth at first is, 
in our j udgment, by Bishops, Presbyters and Deacons. 

We hold that a threefold Order of the Ministry is 
necessary to the existence of the Church on earth. 
We hold that Almighty God has always set forth a 
ministry in a threefold form and in the Christian dis- 
pensation that form is found in Bishops, Presbyters 
and Deacons. There were other names employed, 
but these three Orders were always there. Now 
the Presbyterian theory, first formulated in the 
early part of the sixteenth century, (just fifteen 
hundred and odd years after the Ascension of our 
Blessed Lord, ) is, that there is but one order in the 
ministry, and that Order (the second as we teach) 
is called Presbyters. Hence they hold that Presby- 
ters, and not Bishops observe, that Presbyters, and 
not Bishops, are the officers who perpetuate them- 
selves in the Church; that Deacons are an order of 
iaymen for the management of the temporal affairs, 
s,nd for the dispensing of charities. 

Many of you have no doubt imagined that the 
term Presbyterian applies to a system of church 
doctrine. That is a mistake ; it applies solely and 
wholly to a system of church government. But 
latterly it has been taken to set forth a system sX 
church doctrine as well. Now suppose the claim 
were true that the succession— for our good Pres- 
byterian friends are just as much committed to the 
doctrine of the Apostolic Succession as we are. 
(This is news to a number of Presbyterians, but I 
have a document here which goes to show that the 



PRESBYTERIANISM. 73 

Presbyterians are just as settled on the subject of 
Apostolic Succession as the highest High Church 
Episcopalian in the land.) Now suppose it were 
true, that the lawful succession comes through the 
Presbyterian Order in the Ministry, that is the sec- 
ond Order, and not through the Bishops the first or 
Episcopal Order, as we call it, (the word Episco- 
pal means Bishop) even then our Presbyterian 
friends cannot show the Apostolic Succession, and 
for this reason, they were born fifteen hundred and 
fifry years too late. That is all. A little accident 
of fifteen hundred and fifty years cui s them out of 
it, notwithstanding their claim, even supposing 
that claim were true. 

But now as I know that my time is short and I 
cannot supplement all the lectures, I want to give 
you the proof of this. The Catholic position is 
that in the ancient Jewish Church there were the 
High Priest, the Priest, and the Levite, three or- 
ders; nobody ever dreams of denying it. Our po- 
sition is that when our Lord came upon the earth 
He, the great High Priest, chose to Himself the 
special twelve whom He named Apostles, and He 
also sent forth seventy who were called disciples. 
None of these, whether disciples or Apostles, were 
chosen by the people. There were then seventy 
disciples sent forth by Him, and twelve Apostles 
and Himself. That just before the time of His As- 
cension into Heaven He communicated the power 
which He Himself had to the Twelve. He said, 
"All power is given unto Me in Heaven and in 
earth. As My Father has sent Me even so send I 
you." He addressed Himself not to the Seventy, 
but to the Twelve. " As My Father has sent Me," 
clothed with all power, u so send I you. Whose 
sins thou dost remit, they are remitted. Whose 
sins thou dost retain, they are retained." And 
then, that they might have authority to commit this 
trust to other men, He said, "Andlo! I am with 
you alwav unto the end of the world." 



74 PRESBYTERIANISM. 

So, on the descent of the Holy Ghost at Pente- 
cost, one of the very first acts was the direction by 
these Apostles of Our Lord, now raised to the first 
place in the Ministry, to " Seek out for yourselves 
seven men of repute (deacons) whom we (not ye) 
shall appoint over this business.*' And right here 
I wish to say that the body known as Congrega- 
tionalists (Presbyterians under another name) a 
good many years ago published an edition of the 
Bible, in which, adroitly, they changed one single 
letter which had it not been exposed would have 
discredited the whole idea of the Episcopal theory. 
Had that Bible gained circulation, the Episcopal 
Church, I imagine they fancied, would be nowhere. 
But the providence of God led to its discovery and 
the Congregationalists with shame withdrew it. 
Some of these Bibles are still extant. They chang- 
ed the word "we" into the word "ye," changing 
a W into a Y, so that the passage reads, ' ' Whom 
ye may appoint over this business." As every one 
of course knows that nobody but the Apostles had 
the appointing power, the theory of the Church 
was all at sea. But the original is, u Whom we 
may appoint over this business." So then we have 
Apostles, Elders, and Deacons. Moreover, we dis- 
cover that when St. Paul writes to St. Timothy he 
directs him to ordain elders in every city and ad- 
monishes him to be careful with regard to those 
upon whom he should lay his hands. If he were 
only an Elder, and if there were no other Order in 
the ministry, this would be a most remarkable 
statement to make. The same is true with regard 
to the others in Crete, where there were, perhaps, 
numbers of Elders. Then again, remember, that 
lor fifteen hundred years no one ever heard of such 
a theory as was then propounded, and is now main- 
tained by the Presbyterians. Now they say that 
because the terms bishop and presbyter are occa- 
sionally used interchangeably in Holy Scripture, 
and here and there in some of the ancient Fathers, 



PRESBYTEMANISM. 75 

therefore there was but one Order in the Ministry. 
Well nothing can be simpler than that. The words 
indeed have been used interchangeably just as to- 
day. Our bishop is a priest when discharging the 
functions of a priest, and a bishop when discharg- 
ing the functions of a bishop. Every bishop is a 
priest, every priest is not a bishop. 

Bat in order that this matter might be fully set- 
tled in the minds of candidates for ordination, the 
Professor of Ecclesiastical History at Princeton, 
Dr. Miller, prepared a Manual of Church History. 
He also delivered lectures on Church History. Dr. 
Miller in the Princeton Theological Seminary was 
guilty of garbling the ancient Fathers in a way 
that would have shamed a forger. I make this 
statement without the least fear of contradiction. 
Following his unhappy lead, the Methodists and 
others have dropped into the fashion of it. And 
any one who desires to examine the original can do 
so in any public library, or in my library so far as 
that is concerned. Observe, quoting Ignatius, 
who himself lived in the time of the Apostles, he 
says, ' ' in like manner let all reverence the Pres- 
byters as the Sanhedrin of God, and college of the 
Apostles." On this he builds up the argument thnt 
the Presbyters are the lawful, and only lawful suc- 
cessors, of the Apostles. Now what Ignatius did 
say is this, ' ■ In like manner let all reverence the 
Deacons as Jesus Christ, the Bishop as the Father, 
and the Presbyters as the Sanhedrin of God and 
College of the Apostles. Without these there is no 
Church." Fancy such a forgery as that by a re- 
spectable professor in a large college! 

Again, quoting the same Ignatius, he says, ' ' Be 
subject to your Presbyters as to the Apostles of 
Jesus Christ our hope," showing again that the 
Church was to be subject to Presbyters, not to 
Bishops. What did Ignatius really say? Ignatius 
really said, " It is therefore necessary that as ye 
do, so without your Bishop ye shall do nothing. 



76 PRESBYTERIAN ISM. 

Also, be subject to your Presbyters as to the Apos- 
tles of Jesus Christ our hope with whom if we live 
we shall be found in Him, the Deacons also as be- 
ing of the mysteries (ministers) of Jesus Christ rev- 
erence." Again, another extract from the Fathers 
by this forger Professor of History at Princeton is, 
" Follow the Presbyters as the Apostles." In re- 
ality Jgnatius said, u Follow your Bishops as Jesus 
Christ did the Father, and the Presbyters as the 
Apostles, and reverence the Deacons as the com- 
mended of God." What can any one think of this? 
There are hundreds of others which I have here, 
but which time utterly forbids that I should quote, 
but which I am ready to quote at any moment, at 
any time. Never was forgery more palpable or 
outrageous. 

The Apostles, as they passed out of this life, ap- 
pointed successors to themselves, and all antiquity 
with one voice distinctly declared that fact. Nor 
was there ever heard of such a thing as a Presby- 
terian form of worship until the unhappy move- 
ment in Germany arose against the Church. (I see 
that my time is up. I pity the people who are 
standing and yet I know that I shall not have 
strength or opportunity to extend this lecture, if I 
stop now. And I dislike to leave the matter half 
done. I shall try to be as rapid as possible. I was 
compelled in the nature of the case to spend some- 
time on the evils of schism in general.) 

The first movement arose with Martin Luther. 
Martin Luther is regarded as a saint by many peo- 
ple. Some historians of the Reformation place him 
almost upon a pinnacle side by side I was about to 
say, with the Deity. Martin Luther, while no doubt 
he was perfectly right in protesting against the 
monstrosities of Rome, was himself a libertine and, 
as I think, in the natural sequence of his destruc- 
tion of lawful authority, and overcome by tempta- 
tion of the flesh he broke his vow of celibacy and 
induced a nun to break her vow. He was a man 



PRESBYTERIANISM. U 

of strong passions and strong will. The Church 
had given him a chance to make himself famous. 
Licentiousness ran riot. He set out at first to bat- 
tle against this, strange as that may sound, and so 
besides the question which I but barely touched 
last Sunday alter noon and which was the real bone 
ol contention, he had great opportunities, which, 
however, he grossly misused. He did not attempt 
to blot out the evils he deplored, as they gained 
strength in the Church, but he abandoned the 
Church. He sought to overthrow one sin by com- 
mitting another. He threw overboard its succes- 
sion and undertook to establish a church for him- 
self, and to do so, he must fortify himself, of course, 
by the adoption of an entirely new theory. By whom 
was he at first assisted, then opposed and finally suc- 
ceeded in this work? By John Calvin. John Cal- 
vin, a man of iron will and iron heart ; a man who 
by his very constitution impressed himself upon 
people. 

At that time the whole European world was in a 
ferment. He found many friends amongst English 
and Scotch people who fled from strife, political 
and ecclesiastical, and who went over to Geneva. 
John Calvin infused them with his own views of 
theology. He pushed his own interests inasmuch 
as he set forth those horrible five doctrines, those 
dreadful statements, that have been the despair of 
thousands of men from that day until this. Amongst 
these people was Jonn Knox, a man of his own 
temper. John Knox, of whom Sunday school 
books make a saint, and history a devil. I come 
between the two. I am sure he was not a saint, 
but I am willing to acknowledge that he was not 
such a devil as many people think. But John Knox 
started forth in Scotland with the most determined 
purpose. Like all men of such character he drew 
men to him. Who does not that is positive? He 
went not as a minister of love with the Cross iu 
both hands, but with a sword to slay men. He 



78 PBESBYTERIANISM. 

tore down altars, demolished beautiful windows, 
desecrated churches, ran riot over men and glut- 
ted himself in the blood of his enemies. And John 
Knox impressed upon Scotland Calvin's views. And 
what were those views? That the Divine Lord had 
— but why should I tell you? Here is the Confes- 
sion of Faith. [Let me say, parenthetically, that 
in reaching conclusions I do not judge by the 
things that are said about people by others, I take 
what they say about themselves. ] This book says 
that ' ' by the decree of God, for the manifestation 
oi His glory, some men and angels are predestined 
to everlasting life and others are foreordained to 
everlasting death. These angels and men, thus 
predestined and foreordained are numbered and un- 
changeable. Their number is so certain and defi- 
nite that it can neither be increased nor dimin- 
ished." And so, my brethren, I might goon and 
quote you passage after passage from this Confes- 
sion of Faith of the Presbyterian church, and yet 
not convey to your minds a clear idea of all the 
points in them. Let me tell you what they are. 

The firrt is "Election or Reprobation." That 
God, by an unchangeable decree of His will elected 
out of mankind a certain number whom He intended 
should be saved, the rest should be damned.- The 
second is "particular Redemption." Particular 
Redemption means that our Divine Lord suffered 
upon the Cross not for all men, as you poor sinners 
have imagined, not for all men, the Presbyterian 
says, but only for the elect. And inasmuch as no 
one knows who is of the elect how shall any man 
know that Christ died for him or not. How shall 
I, standing here a priest of God, know that Christ 
died for my salvation at all inasmuch as I cannot 
tell, until after death, whether I am of the elect or 
not ? For it is distinctly declared in the Confes- 
sion of Faith that "though men be called especial- 
ly to the ministration of the Gospel unless they have 
been elected by God, they wUl not be saved. " - So 



PRESBYTERIANISM. T9 

then, a man may believe that God has called him 
to the ministry — the Church may think it — yea, even 
God may have called him, and yet God may have 
always intended to damn him. Why, that is not set 
forth with regard to Judas Iscariot. So also our 
Lord did not suffer in order that all men might be 
saved. He suffered in order that the elect only 
should be saved. 

The next is the < l Bondage of the Will. " That is 
their own expression, not mine, observe. The 
" Bondage of the Will" is, that God so moves upon 
the spirit, that human will is no longer free — that i< 
is only free in the sense that it does what God impels 
it to do, not otherwise. So then, as a necessary 
consequence, all prayer is unnecessary. All Sacra- 
ments are unnecessary. All ministrations of Chris- 
tianity are unnecessary. For if God through all 
eternity has elected out of mankind a certain num- 
ber that shall infallibly be saved whether they know 
it or do not know it, where is the use of any minis- 
tration ? If all the rest of mankind are passed by 
and have been reprobated to damnation what is the 
use of trying to be saved ? Why restrain a man's 
self? Why should he not say, as the elect of God, 
11 No matter what I do, I shall be saved. " Or as a 
reprobate "It matters not what I do, I shall be 
damned. " 

Then the fourth doctrine is l ' Irresistible Grace. " 
That is, that God irresistibly compels men to walk 
in that path which will ultimately lead them to sal- 
vation. That is not the meaning as taught in the 
present day but as it used to be taught, for, thank 
God, it is not often taught so now. You will not 
hear any Presbyterian minister in this town preach 
this doctrine; unless this lecture may compel some 
feeble utterance of it, Intelligence rebels against 
it. But still it was the doctrine of Calvin and the 
doctrine of Knox. It was the doctrine of the early 
Presbyterians, it is the doctrine of their books. 
That it is not preached now, is solely because men 



80 PBESBYTERIANISiL 

dare not preach it. The fourth point I say is ' ' Ir- 
resistible Grace. " That God compels men by the 
almighty power of His will to receive grace. 
Therefore what can a manly man answer should 
God say at the last day " Well done thou good and 
faithful servant. Thou hast been faithful over a few 
things I will make thee ruler over many things." 
What could an honest man say to that, when he could 
not have been otherwise than faithful inasmuch as he 
was irresistibly impelled to it? Would not any 
man going up to judgment, who had been dragged 
as it were to grace in this way, would he not feel 
that there was something unnatural in saying to 
him " Well done thou good and faithful servant?" 
But when God would say to a man " Inasmuch as 
ye did it not unto the least of these, ye did it not 
unto me" what would a manly man say under such 
circumstances? The whole idea of judgment is 
that God give3 every man an opportunity. There 
is question and answer. There is the scrutiny of 
the mind? of men. There God deals with His 
creatures as sensible and reasonable beings and 
does not condemn a man without giving him an op- 
portunity of defending himself if he can. There, 
our Blessed Lord distinctly declares, that there 
shall be an examination. "I was ar hungered, and 
ye fed me, thirsty, and ye gave me drink" and they 
shall say ''Lord when wast Thou hungry and we 
fed Thee, or thirsty and wo gave Thee drink ?" To 
those on the left hand He will say ' ' I was an hun- 
gered and ye fed me not, thirsty and ye gave me 
not drink." And they shall say "When wast Thou 
hungry and we fed Thee not, thirsty and we gave 
Thee no drink ? " And He shall say " Inasmuch as 
ye did it not unto the least of these ye did it not 
unto mo. " What could a man say to this I ask 
but " Why, how could I do it? Did not your irre- 
sistible grace take my neighbor here and impel him 
to lead the better life for which you now crown 
him ? And did not the with-drawal or with-holding 



PRESBYTERIANISM. 81 

of the same grace compel me to the opposite course 
for which you now condemn me f " Where is 
there justice, to say nothing of paternity, of mercy, 
compassion, love, or any of the gracious attributes 
in God ? Where is that justice that God should irre- 
sistibly, by some with-drawal or with-holding of 
His Spirit, compel me to an evil life, and say inas- 
much as I did it not unto the least of these, my 
portion is to be with the sinners that burn in the 
lake ? It is an awful blasphemy ! 

And then, the fifth point is " Final Persever- 
ance, " but I am not going to dwell upon that. 

Now as I began so I close. If Presbyterianism be 
plausible in its theory it is fifteen hundred and fifty 
years too late, and that alone is fatal to its truth. 
It began with Calvin and Knox, and not with 
Christ and the Apostles. But its history proves it 
to be false. Did you ever try to count up the 
number of Presbyterian churches so-called to be 
found in this land ? And the sects evolved from 
Presbyterianism ? I should weary you by reciting 
them. They fill up pages of the Encyclopedia. 
Beginning with the Cameronians and the Presby- 
terians United, the United Presbyterian, the Free 
Church, the Secession Church, the Relief Church— 
all along the line numberless sects appear that have 
parted from them in this country. Their name is 
legion and absolutely bewildering to any sensible 
man ! 

I make the assertion now, that the Catholic 
Church in this land has suffered less than any other 
religious body in the way of division or secession 
since that woeful time called the Reformation 
period. And I hold that it is of the genius of 
sectarianism to disintegrate; and it was never bet- 
ter illustrated than in the history of Presbyterian- 
ism, for, among other evils, if to-day a man travel- 
ing in England were to announce himself a Presby- 
terian he would most likely be mistaken for a Uni- 
tarian — a denier of the Divinity of our Divine 



6"l PRESBYTERIANISM. 

Lord. I make this statement and I challenge con- 
tradiction. I say that the natural tendency of sect- 
arianism, or P'-esbyterianism, for the ideas are 
synonymous, is 1 to the destruction of faith and the 
denial of the Divinity of our Divine Lord. Let me 
tell you that there are hundreds and hundreds of 
men who fancy themselves to be orthodox upon this 
particular question of the Divinity of our Lord that 
are anything but sound if they were pushed to the 
wall for reasons. Men do not know why they are 
what they are, because they have never taken the 
trouble to examine. And if as the result of these 
lectures that I am delivering this Lent they are 
brought to examine the foundation of their faith, we 
shall all have great reason to thank God. If God 
shall trouble their minds, so that they shall make 
inquiry into the foundation of the true faith, thank 
God. Whatever the issue is, thank God, because, 
as it is the one desire of my soul in delivering these 
lectures to arouse thought and examination, so I 
believe God will grant me the desire of my soul. I 
shall be looking forward to that unity for which our 
Lord s j '.ffpred "and died, and for which to-day and 
every day, He pleads and for which His Church 
joins her petitions with every Sacrament offered on 
her divine .Altara. 



V. 

(WU#dbtettt+ 

in all the nineteen centuries which have passed 
away since our Divine Lord ascended into Heaven. 
I do not believe that there was ever a religious 
body conceived by the wit of man so noble in its 
origin, so holy in its purpose as the Methodist so- 
ciety. And when I have said that, which is the 
conviction of my heart as well as of my understand- 
ing, I have also stated my objection to it. I said 
that it was conceived by the wit of man. 

The position of the Methodists is absolutely 
unique. Perhaps it were better that I had said the 
position of the Methodists as it was up to the year 
1784, was absolutely unique. It was unlike any 
other sect. It was never intended to be a sect , I* 
drifted into the sect condition against the earnest 
entreaties of its projector. That it became a sect 
was the misfortune — one could hardly say the fault 
of— Mr. Wesley. 

In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred the origin 
of religious bodies is to be found in error, pride, 
ambition, licentiousness, or infidelity, or some other 
cause or combination of causes which carries with 
it the death-knell of the sect. With the Methodists 
it was quite a different thing. 

Originally a few young men gathered together in 
a room of one of their number, a clergyman, and a 
fellow of one of the colleges of Oxford. They were 
moved to this coming together because of the r ; 3llg 
ions apathy which was everywhere to be observed. 
The Clergy of the Church of England, mistaking 
their calling had almost abandoned the spiritual 
care of their flocks. The growth of the establish- 
ment, the decadence of individual piety, the easi- 



84 METHODISM. 

ness of living, the indisposition to self-examination, 
all this brought about a carelessness in the admin- 
istration of the rites and ceremonies of the Church. 
Holy days were unknown, Fast days were laughed 
at. The Sacrament of the Lord's Supper was 
grievously neglected. The appointed prayers were 
hurried over with carelessness. The sermons had 
little or nothing in them. In this, as in many other 
instances, the priests were most careless in their 
living. 

These few men were stirred to the heart as they 
observed the decay of true piety. Of course you 
understand that I speak now of matters in general. 
Always, thank God, there were holy souls, excep- 
tions to the rule ; but then, very sad it was that it 
should be said they were exceptions. These men 
not only touched by the Spirit of God, illumined by 
the reading of His Holy Word, but also thoroughly 
acquainted with the ancient history of the Church, 
saw that it was not lack of spirituality in the 
Church — in the system of the Church — that brought 
matters to this condition. The Church herself was 
blameless. The Church's formularies were most 
urgent in the observance of all that could make 
men holy. It was merely that the servants of the 
Church, individual men, here and there, who neg- 
lected their parts and abandoned their duties, and 
had forsaken the food that God gave them, to wan- 
der in the wilderness without the Church's food. 
Now I say that these men, after narrowly inspect- 
ing the Church's system, and carefully reading an- 
cient authors, came to the conclusion that a revival 
of religion was necessary, and that that revival of 
religion must take place within the bosom of the 
Church. 

They joined themselves together, a little band, 
pledging themselves to observe the celebration of 
the Holy Eucharist, to be present at services on 
Holy days, to see that service was said on Holy 
days; by frequent meeting and reading of God's 



METHODISM. 85 

Word ; by meditation and prayer ; by exciting 
other people to use these means of grace ; they 
sought to stir up people to a sense of their condi- 
tion, and to the use of the untouched treasures 
which were in the Church for the salvation ot hu- 
man souls. And this they did with more or less 
regularity and enthusiasm until Mr. Wesley and his 
brother felt called upon to come to this country. 
Mr. Wesley made a very short stay here. He was 
rector of one of the Churches in Georgia. Some 
incidents ot his stay there, which must be interest- 
ing to you, but with which I cannot now trouble 
your mind, exhibit something of his character. He 
was an enthusiast, consequently you would suppose 
a man most disposed to suit the Methodists. But 
this is a mistake. He was indeed an enthusiast, a 
man inflamed with the love of God and the love of 
human souls ; such a man as to-day would be called 
a fanatic. And yet with all that he had a keen 
sense of justice. He had an unswerving fidelity to 
what he conceived to be duty. And so when a cir- 
cumstance arose that brought him face to face with 
the necessity of exercising discipline upon persons 
whom he loved, he did not hesitate to do it, though 
it cost him the affection of all his people, and drove 
him from the country. He returned to the old 
country, spending a little while, however, on the 
continent where he imbibed some views not alto- 
gether foreign to those which already possessed 
him, but which pointed out to him a new field for 
thought. Returning to England those old friends 
of his gathered together once more. And now the 
work seemed to grow upon his hands. His room 
no longer contained the people who came to him for 
advice and assistance in spiritual matters. They 
therefore determined to find a place in the city 
where he might meet them in larger numbers. No 
rules were at this time adopted. Wesley was the 
sole rule of the people whom he met, and these peo- 
ple had no more idea of abandoning the Church 



S6 METHODISM. 

than Mr. Wesley had, or than any man now warp*r 

ly attached to the Episcopal Church could possibly 
have. It was never in their thoughts. It was not 
until afterwards, when these societies increased 
and there came what seemed to be necessity for for- 
mal gatherings at other points, that some difficult 
questions arose. How was this to be managed? 
Who was to take charge of them? Were they to 
be taken charge of by anybody? Should persons 
other than authorized priests of the Church expound 
Holy Scripture to them? Was that liberty which 
had been enjoyed in the seclusion of the room in 
Oxford, or in the larger room in the Foundry — that 
liberty of uniting and pouring out their hearts in 
prayer to God, to be denied to them now? In fact 
they were confronted with the question, " What is 
to be the formal arrangement of these meetings ?" 
Now, up to this time, Wesley was simply re- 
garded by his brother priests as a warm-hearted, 
enthusiastic man who was running ahead of the 
times. He was what is now popularly called a 
ritualist. You would hardly suspect that of the 
originator of the Methodist Society. He was an 
avowed High Churchman, a man who believed in 
keeping the Fasts and Feasts of the Church, and 
absolutely received Holy Communion once or twice 
a week. Strange to say he had that curious notion 
which High Churchmen and ritualists have ever 
had, that the prayers of the Church were intended 
to be said daily and that the Church should have a 
real hold on the spiritual life of the people. Was 
it any wonder that he should arouse strife among 
his brethren ? Where in all the ages has there 
ever been a man who attempted against the popu- 
lar voice to conscientiously perforin his duty that 
has not been the victim of vituperation. Of course 
he was persecuted, and his foes were the foes oi 
his own household. It was the men who were 
priests with him, perhaps ordained at the same 
time with him, that rejected him. Mr. Wesley wag 



METHODISM. 87 

not a Parish priest, that is to say, he had no Par- 
ish in which he could himself officiate. A priest 
who has a Parish has very little difficulty in the ar 
rangement ot such matters. He has certain free- 
hold rights. He could celebrate Holy Communion 
as often as he pleased, and might explain the 
Church's system in any way that he desired- He 
would simply be regarded as fanatical. No steps 
could be taken to prevent him from dealing with 
spiritual subjects in whatever way he deemed best 
within the limits of the Church's liberty. But he 
was what is known as a Fellow of one of the col- 
leges of Oxford, consequently he had no Parish. 
He was entirely dependent upon the courtesy of his 
brethren for opportunity to preach in the settled 
churches of a place. It was a mere matter of po- 
liteness on their part to ask him to preach. Being 
stirred up as he believed by the Spirit of God he 
broke out in denunciation of the deadness in the 
Church, and tried to stir up Churchmen to some 
sort of vigor in religion. It was when he preached 
of saving truths, truths that deal with men's souls, 
as well as with men's opinions, that the clergy said, 
"lam very much obliged for your sermon, but you 
cannot preach here again." So one after another 
of the various churches to which he turned from 
time to time were closed against him. Knowledge 
of him went throughout the country. Of cours^ 
people talked about him. It was not easy sailing 
with Mr. Wesley in those days ; for you may imag- 
ine, multitudes thronged around him to hear the 
words from his lips, yet there were multitudes that 
2bllowed him with every kind of disorder ; there 
were here and there godly people, or people who 
desired to be godly, for I have no doubt that a pas- 
sionate desire to be godly lies in every human heart, 
that followed him as he went from place to place 
preaching the gospel of God, so there were also 
multitudes stirred up either by men whose sins he 
was exposing to the public gaze, or by lazy priests 



88 METHODISM. 

in the Church, who persecuted him from place to 
place. And when we remember the character of 
his ministrations: when we remember the tender 
love in which he addressed these gatherings from 
time to time, exhorting his people to patience 
and perseverance, how they were honored by Al- 
mighty God in being thus stoned from place to 
place, and treated as outcasts, that he should in- 
deed feel in his soul that he was an evangelist rais- 
ed up by God, (and I believe he was, ) an extraor- 
dinary messenger to provoke ordinary messengers 
to their duty, as he afterwards spoke of his own 
lay preachers. 

You see, he simply adopted in that early day 
what has since come to be so fashionable amongst 
ourselves. I suppose I have been asked a hundred 
times "When will you have a mission here?" I 
know I have given missions a dozen times. I know 
that all over this land as well as in the old country, 
missions have been given again and again. And 
what are missions ? They were set on foot by those 
people known as ritualists, and were simply the 
means employed to carry the Gospel to the masses, 
since the masses would not come to the Gospel. 
To preach plain truths to plain people. It was, by 
singing hymns with which people were familiar and 
with fervent, honest words to inflame their zeal, to 
arouse Cheir enthusiasm, to quicken their con- 
sciences to stir their hearts: then to press home 
upon them some truths of the Gospel with all the 
force that God could give his priests : and then to 
insist upon a rigid examination into individual con- 
sciences, and the particular state of grace in which 
that person found himself. This Mr. Wesley aid. 
And when you hear of Parishes to-day that 
indulge in these mission meetings you find people 
that are simply following in the footsteps of 
that great and good man. The modern revival- 
no, no: the revival has ceased to be modern — but 
the revival as it was twenty-five years ago—the rr 



METHODISM. 89 

vival as it was fifty years ago, is only a slight exagger- 
ation of the missions of the present day, and the 
meetings which Mr. Wesley had in the early days. 

Now in entering upon this matter I want to be 
just as impartial as 1 can. Of course you under- 
stand that I am trying to teach my own people 
about it, I am not here for the purpose of solely 
lauding the Methodist society, but I do want to be 
perfectly impartial if God will enable me to be so, 
and give to every man his just due, and what I 
have said is no more than the just due of the 
Methodists. The name itself was an expression 
that clung to these young men who gathered to- 
gether in Oxford. Originally Mr. Wesley called 
them the United Society: but some people in deri- 
sion used the term which had been used in France 
with relation to a body who desired to reconcile 
the Huguenots to the Church. It was also applied 
to a body of physicians who had certain methods 
for treating diseases, and so the term Methodists 
originally applied by way of derision was assumed 
by Mr. Wesley and his immediate friends. 

The avowed purpose of this society was for the 
promotion and practice of piety within the Church 
of England. It never occurred to Mr. Wesley to 
separate from the Church ; it never occurred to his 
immediate followers. On the contrary the rules 
laid down were of such nature that separation from 
the Church would be simply impossible. They 
were: that they should never assemble in the Church 
hours on Sunday ; that they should not presume to 
administer any of the Sacraments or other rites 
and ceremonies of the Church; that they should 
resort to the Church constantly for the Sacraments; 
that they should attend it with great care; that 
they were not to observe niceness in hearing, but 
should listen to whatever was said; that even the 
worst preacher would have something for them 
that might be valuable. 

The first difficulty that occurred to him was the 



METHODISM. 



necessity of providing places in which these people 
should meet. They had now outgrown the possibility 
of being gathered into one place and it was arranged 
that places should be built, where the clergymen 
might meet with them. So a few chapels were 
built, rather what they called preaching houses for 
they were particularly careful to avoid the word 
u Church ' in connection with them. They would 
not even call the places they built Ci meeting 
houses " least anyone might in some way confound 
them with Presbyterians, for whom, by the way, 
they had then, and still maintain, a hearty horror. 
They built these preaching houses, and now and 
then found clergymen of the Church friendly enough 
to them who would come there and assist them 
with services and counsel and some ministra- 
tions. But so great was the movement throughout 
the whole country, so rapidly did these societies 
multiply that the necessity for appointing some per- 
sons to look after the spiritual interests of these peo- 
ple presented itself. 

Now arose the subject of lay oreachers. Mr. 
Wesley was well read in ancient history, and he 
knew that it was not at all uncommon for laymen to 
be appointed to preach the Gospel; he did what lay 
in his power to secure in such men persons of dis- 
cretion, good common sense, and then with what 
assistance they could get from others, he had some 
reason to believe that the Gospel would be preach- 
ed and that prayer would be made and that the 
ousiness of the societies would be conducted with- 
out any extravagance or wrong. The rules which 
I have already mentioned lo you were re-affirmed 
^gain and again. 

I cannot take time now to go into all the matter? 
which greatly affected Mr. Wesley's career and 
the society of the Methodists, because that would! 
take altogether too much time. One of the gravest 
was the separation between Whitefield and Wesley 
Whitefield having adopted Calvinistic ideas, there 



METHODISM. 91 

was necessity of a separation between them 
which both regretted and which never was healed. 
And so almost at the very beginning there was 
a split in the society created by this defection 
of Whitefield. I do not know whether it is right to 
call it a defection inasmuch as they were co-ordin- 
ate, but they separated, the one becoming a Calvin- 
ist adopting the Calvinistic theories which were 
then being taught all over the country, and Wesley 
for his part and those who held with him becoming 
Arminian. 

And now in some country places large numbers of 
persons who did not belong to the Church began to 
connect themselves with the Methodist society, 
and this was the origin of all the evil which has 
since resulted. I say all the evil, because their 
own men have acknowledged that evil did result, 
from the fact that persons were admitted who were 
not of the Church of England. The idea came to 
be received that a man might connect himself with 
the Methodist society without forfeiting member- 
ship in that particular body to which he belonged. 

In this way, persons who were not attached to 
the doctrines and worship of the Church of Eng- 
land, came to have some influence in the councils 
of the Methodist society, and by and by and here and 
there, some very controlling influence. Little by 
little the question arose whether in places where 
the Church services were not said on Sunday it 
might not be lawful for them to meet at that hour. 
Of course there were very many places where 
Church services were only said occasionally, per- 
haps once or twice a month. Now the question 
arose, " Are we as Methodists bound to observe this 
law in regard to Church hours in places where the 
Church services are not said?" That was a very 
difficult question to answer. Mr. Wesley was so 
exceedingly anxious to keep them to the strict rules 
which he laid down, that at last it was agreed that 
such persons should only meet during Church hours, 



92 METHODISM. 

when the trustees of that particular preaching 
house were entirely agreed, and when the advice of 
Mr. Wesley had been previously sought; but in 
case they did meet then that services of the Church 
must be said. And so to this day the Wesleyan 
Methodists, who now meet at the same hour as the 
Church, do use in the morning the regular service 
of the Church. 

Mr. Wesley also had it in mind to prepare and 
did subsequently set forth a form of prayer partly for 
use in that country, but chiefly for use in this 
country. 

Now leaving the condition of the Methodists in 
the old country, let us consider the condition of 
Methodism here at that time. A number of lay 
preachers came over to this country and under the 
direction of Mr. Wesley gathered together congre- 
gations of Methodists. I have here a rare book 
which I was able to secure by the assistance of a 
friend, which contains the minutes of the Metho- 
dist Conferences from the year 1773 to the year 
1813 inclusive. I am not going to read the whole 
book to you, although, I assure you, it would be 
very instructive. I intend however to read the 
titles of some of these minutes and also one or two 
paragraphs. "Minutes of some conferences be- 
tween the preachers in connection with the Rev- 
erend John Wesley in Philadelphia, 1773." (You 
will think of the date and you will think of the 
political difficulties which were about the people of 
this country at that time. ) The following questions 
were proposed to every preacher. "Ought not 
the authority of Mr. Wesley and that of Conference 
to extend to preachers in America as well as in 
Great Britain and Ireland?" Answer "Yes." 
"Ought not the doctrines and discipline of the 
Methodists as contained in the minutes, to be the 
sole rule of our conduct ? " Answer ' ' Y r es. " The 
following rules were agreed to by all preachers. 
" Every preacher who acts in connection with Mr. 



METHODISM. 9§ 

Lesley and the brethren who labor in America are 
strictly to avoid administering Baptism and the 
Lord's Supper. " Observe to avoid administering 
the ordinances of Baptism and the Lord's Supper. 

"The people among whom we labor to be earnest- 
ly exhorted to attend the Church and receive the 
ordinances there. And in a particular manner to 
press the people in Maryland and Virginia to 
the observance of this minute. " "No person or 
persons to be admitted to our love-feast twice or 
thrice unless they become members. " This was 
the first conference. 

It is not until 1785 that the form is changed. 
The form of the Methodist society then ceases to 
exist and the Methodist Episcopal Church comes 
into its place. Now let us review the situation. 
You are aware that the Revolution had taken 
place. The clergy in England are compelled at 
their ordination to take an oath as to the supremacy 
of the sovereign of England. Every clergyman of 
our communion then laboring in America had taken 
this oath, which was equivalent to an oath of alle- 
giance. The question now arose, "How do we 
stand affected by that oath ? " Some men felt that 
they were bound by that oath to remain loyal to 
Britain, so either returned to England or went to 
Canada. 

Others felt that they were in sympathy with the 
Colonies and remained in this country, but never- 
theless felt that their oath so bound them that they 
could not release themselves from it, and therefore 
ceased to minister and went into secular life. 
Others felt that the change in government was 
God's ordering of human events and therefore they 
were absolved from the oath of allegiance to the 
British power, and so could lawfully remain here. 
You will see then there were very, very few clergy- 
men in this country. The disposition of the clergy 
towards the Methodists was of the most favorable 
kind. The statement is over and over again made 



94 METHODISM. 

in history that the Methodists did not suffer for 
lack of Sacraments where it was possible for the 
clergy to give them. Of course you know the 
country grew rapidly. Multitudes came here. The 
oersons going from place to place were not the best, 
and so there grew up naturally a strong desire, 
particularly in this country, for a separate orgrui- 
zation. Something besides moved them to this. 
It was conceived that the relation of the Church of 
England in America to the people was inimical to 
a republican form of government, and that sooner 
or later the clergy of the Church would have an influ- 
ence in weaning the people from their allegiance to 
a republican form of government and would ulti- 
mately restore the country to England. 

Of course this was all foolish, as the events 
proved. But still there was an idea that we were 
naturally an aristocratic people. I heard the 
other day that we were still thought to be 
an aristocratic people. After a hundred years 
have passed the Episcopalians are still thought to 
be aristocratic. The Methodists outnumbered the 
Church people; of course they were Church people 
too at the time, but I mean taken apart from those 
persons who only attended Church and did not go 
to Methodist meetings, they outnumbered them. 
Then pressure was brought to bear upon Mr. 
Wesley. He was getting old, he was wondering 
what would become of the societies after he passed 
out of life. Men of some prominence as preachers 
had grown up under his hand. These were clamor- 
ing for a separate organization. Against this he 
set his face as a flint. But fearful that he might 
not be doing just what was the will of God in the 
matter he looked across the Atlantic and saw this 
country, as he believed, providentially released 
from the established Church, and he wandered 
within himself if it would not be right for him to 
assist them to maintain this independence. So, 
very late in life he committed an act which we hold 



METfldDISM. 95 

to be an act of great sin, and which has perpetuated 
a schism between ourselves and the people, for whom 
we ought to have, and, speaking for myself, for 
whom I think we have, the most warm and affec 
tionate feeling, an act which has been the scandal 
of religion and the delay of that Christian unity fcr 
which our Lord prayed. Now this is the language 
employed. Mr. Wesley wrote a letter to Dr. Coke, 
Dr. Asbury and his brethren in North America as 
follows : 

"By a very uncommon train of providences 
many of the provinces of North America are totally 
disjoined from the mother country and erected into 
independent States. The "English government has 
no authority over them, either civil or ecclesiasti- 
cal, any more than over the States of Holland. A 
civil authority is exercised over them, partly by the 
Congress, partly by the provincial assemblies. But 
no one either exercises or claims any ecclesiastical 
authority at all. In this peculiar situation some 
thousands of the inhabitants of these States desire 
my advice; and, in compliance with their desire, I 
have drawn up a little sketch." (You see Mr. 
Wesley was under the impression that the clergy 
had abandoned them.) "Lord King's account of 
the primitive Church convinced me many years ago 
that Bishops and Presbyters are the same order 
and consequently have the same right to ordain. 
For many years I have been importuned from time 
to time to exercise this right by ordaining part of 
our traveling preachers. 

"But I have still refused, not only for peace 
sake, but because I was determined as little as pos- 
sible to violate the established order of the National 
Church to which I belonged." 

"But the case is widely different between Eng- 
land and North America. Here there are Bishops 
who have a l<>gal jurisdiction. In America there 
are none, neither any parish minister. So that for 
some hundreds of miles together there is none 



96 METHODISM. 

either to baptize or to administer the Lord's Supper. 
Here, therefore, my scruples are at an end: and I 
conceive myself at full liberty, as I violate no order 
and invade no man's right by appointing and send- 
ing laborers into the harvest." 

"I have accordingly appointed Dr. Coke and Mr. 
Francis Asbury to be joint superintendents over 
our brethren in North America, as also Richard 
Whatcoat and Thomas Vasey, to act as elders 
among the people by baptizing and administering 
the Lord's Supper. And I have prepared a liturgy, 
little differing from that of the Church of England 
(I think the best national Church in the world), 
which I advise all the traveling preachers to use on 
the Lord's Day in all the congregations, reading the 
Litany only on Wednesdays and Fridays, and pray- 
ing extempore on all other days." 

"I also advise the elders to administer the 
Supper of the Lord on every Lord's Day. " 

"If any one will point out a more rational and 
Scriptural way of feeding and guiding these poor 
sheep in the wilderness I will gladly embrace it. 
At present I cannot see any better method than I 
have taken." 

ht It has, indeed, been proposed to desire the Eng- 
lish Bishops to ordain part of our preachers for Amer- 
ica. But to this I object. 1. I desired the Bishop 
of London to ordain one, but could not prevail. 

2. If they consented, we know the slowness of their 
proceedings; but the matter admits of no delay. 

3. If they were to ordain them now, they would ex- 
pect to govern them. And how grievously would 
this entangle us. 4. As our American brethren 
are now totally disentangled from the State and 
the English hierarchy, we dare not entangle them 
again, either with the one or the other. They are 
now at full liberty to follow the Scriptures and the 
Primitive Church. And we judge it best that they 
should stand fast in that liberty wherewith God has 
so strangely made them free. John Wesley." 



METHODISM. 97 

But here you will observe that Mr. Wesley claims 
that he has discovered through Lord King's account 
of the Primitive Church that Bishops and Presby- 
ters are the same order, and either of them have 
the right to ordain. Dr. Coke was already a Pres- 
byter of the Church of England, and therefore 
whatever Mr. Wesley did to him he certainly could 
not or did not make him a Bishop, nor was there 
any necessity for it. If Bishops and Presbyters were 
the same order, then Dr. Coke, who was a Presby- 
ter already in the Church, was equal with himself, 
because he was already of the same order. Mr. 
Wesley never was a Bishop; he was only a priest 
in the Church. And therefore that one priest of 
the Church should assume to ordain another priest 
of the Church to something else which he declared 
was not anything else, will exhibit the absurdness 
of the position. On Mr. Wesley's theory, Dr. Coke 
was as much a Bishop before as after the act of so- 
called ordination. Now I hope you see it clearly. 
He says that Bishops and Presbyters were the 
same order, and had the same right to ordain. Dr. 
Coke was a Presbyter: yet Mr. Wesley says that he 
lays his hands on Dr. Coke and makes him a super- 
intendent. The Methodists in America regarded 
him as a Bishop and called all his successors 
Bishops. But Mr. Wesley declares that Dr. Coke 
was equally of the same order with himself: there- 
fore there would be no necessity for him to make 
him a Bishop. He was one already if Bishops and 
Presbyters were of the same order. What he 
did was this; he gave him authority to represent 
himself as being the chief officer of the Methodists 
iu this country. Now let me prove this to you. 
When Dr. Coke came to this country and began to 
organize the Methodist Episcopal Church, he came 
to have some very serious doubts as to his commis- 
sion. It seemed to him to lack proper authority. 
Mr. Asbury was an entirely different man. You 
will notice that in all the early minutes of theMeth 



98 METHODISM. 

odist Church Mr. Asbury seems to have the chief 
place and that Dr. Coke was the assistant. It will 
be observed in this letter which Mr. Wesley writes 
to Mr. Asbury that he had an entirely different 
idea of the position of these men in America from 
that which Mr. Asbury and the Methodists in this 
country have. Be said: ''But in one point, my 
dear brother, I am a little afraid that the doctor 
(Coke) and you differ from me. I study to be little, 
you study to be great. I creep, you strut along ; I 
found a school, you a college, — nay, and call it 
after your own names. O, beware. Do not seek 
to be something, Let me be nothing and Christ all 
in all." 

"One instance of this your greatness has given 
me great concern. How can you — how dare you 
suffer yourself to be called a Bishop ? I shudder — 
I start at the very thought. Men may call me a 
knave, or a fool a rascal, a scoundrel, and I am 
content: but they shall never by my consent call 
me a Bishop. For my sake — for God's sake — for 
Christ's sake, put a full end to this. Let Presbyte- 
rians do as they please: but let Methodists know 
their calling better." 

1 f Thus, my dear Franky, I have told you all that 
is in my heart, and let this, when I am no more 
seen, bear witnesss how sincerely I am your affec- 
tionate friend and brother. Jokn Wesley. 

And Dr. Coke was brought face to face with 
some of the difficulties of his position. A great 
many men were accounted preachers who had very 
little education. They were borne with because 
they were good men. They were borne with be- 
cause they were earnest men: and yet nevertheless 
it was well known that their methods were rather 
rude, perhaps owing to the condition of the country 
or something of that kind; but Coke saw to what 
this thing was likely to grow, so he addressed a 
letter to our Bishop, Bishop White, in which he 
asked from him episcopal cod seer ation. 



METHODISM. 99 

" Right Reverend Sir," he says, "Permit me to 
intrude a little on your time upon a subject of great 
importance. 

"You, I believe, are conscious that I was brought 
up in the Church of England, and have been or- 
dained a Presbyter of that Church. For many 
years past I was prejudiced even, I think, to bigotry 
in favor of it; but through a variety of causes or 
incidents, to mention which would be tedious and 
useless, my mind was exceedingly biassed on the 
other side of the question. In consequence of this 
I am not sure but I went further in the separation 
of our Church in America than Mr. Wesley, from 
whom I had received my commission, did intend. 
He did indeed solemnly invest me, so far as he had 
a right so to do, with Episcopal authority, but did 
not intend, I think, that an enti e separation 
should take place. He being pressed by our friends 
on this side of the water for ministers to administer 
the sacraments to them (there being very few clergy 
of the Church of England then in the States) he 
went further, I am sure, than he would have gone 
if he had foreseen some events which followed. 
And this I am certain of— that he is now sorry for 
Ihe separation." 

" But what can be done for a re-union, which 1 
must wish for ; and to accomplish which Mr. 
Wesley, I have no doubt, would use his influence to 
the utmost ? The affection of a very considerable 
number of the preachers and most of the people is 
very strong towards him, notwithstanding the ex- 
cessive ill usage he received from a few. My in- 
terest also is not small; and both his and mine 
would readily and to the utmost be used to accom- 
plish that (to us) very desirable object, if a readi- 
ness were shown by the Bishops of the Protestant 
Episcopal Church to re-unite." 

"It is even to your Church an object of great 
importance. We have now above 60,000 adults in 
our Society in these States, and about 250 traveling 



103 METHODISM. 

ministers and preachers, besides a great number of 
local preachers, very far exceeding the number of 
traveling preachers, and some of those local 
preachers are men of very considerable abilities. 
But if we number the Methodists as most people 
number the members of their Church, viz., by the 
families which constantly attend the Divine Ordi- 
nances in their places of worship, they will make a 
larger body than you probably conceive. The 
Society, I believe, may be safely multiplied by five 
on an average to give us our stated congregations, 
which will then amount to 300,000. And if the 
calculation which I think some eminent writers 
have made be just, that the three-fifths of mankind 
are un-adult (if I may use the expression) at a 
given period, it will follow that all the families, the 
adults of which form our congregations in these 
States, amount to 750,000. Al)out one-fifth of these 
are blacks." 

11 1 he work now extends in length from Boston 
to the south of Georgia; and in breadth from the 
Atlantic to Lake Charaplain, Vermont, Albany, 
Redstone, Holstein, Kentucke, Cumberland, etc/' 

'•But there are many hindrances in the way. 
Can they be removed ? I. Our ordained ministers 
will not; ought not; to give up their right of ad- 
ministering the Sacraments: I don't think that the 
generality of them, perhaps none of them would 
refuse to submit to a re-ordination if other hin- 
drances were removed out of the way. I must here 
observe that between sixty and seventy only out of 
the two hundred and fifty have been ordained Pres- 
byters, and about sixty beacons (only). The Pres- 
byters are the choicest of the whole." 

*' 2 The other preachers would hardly submit to 
a re-union, if the possibility of their rising up to 
ordination depended on the present Bishops in 
America. Because tho' they are all, I think I 
may say zealous, pious, and very useful men, yet 
they are not acquainted with the learned languages. 



METHODISM. 101 

Besides they would argue, if the present Bishops 
would waive the Article of the Learned Languages, 
yet their successors might not." 

"My desire of a re-union is so sincere and 
earnest that these difficulties almost make me 
tremble: and yet something must be done before 
the death of Mr. Wesley, otherwise I shall despair 
of success. For tho' my influence among the Meth- 
odists in these States as well as in Europe is, I doubt 
not, increasing; yet Mr. Asbury, whose influence 
is very capital, will not easily comply: nay, I know 
he will be exceedingly averse to it. " 

1 ' In Europe, where some steps had been taken 
tending to a separation, all is at an end. Mr. 
Wesley is a determined enemy of it, and I have 
lately borne an open and successful testimony 
against it, " 

" Shall I be favored with a private interview 
with you in Philadelphia ? I shall be there, God 
willing, on Tuesday the 17th of May. If this be 
agreeable I beg of you just to signify it in a note 
directed to me at Mr. Jacob Bakers, merchant, 
Market street, Philadelphia, or if you please by a 
few lines sent me by the return of the post at Philip 
Rogers, Esquire, in Baltimore, from yourself or 
Dr. M'Gaw. We can then enlarge on these sub- 
jects." And so on. 

Now the upshot of this was, that Bishop White 
did not see his way clearly as to the proposition 
made by Mr. Coke and the Methodist Church, and 
so, as he says himself, he was compelled to decline 
entering into the matter. Coke bore the matter a 
little longer, but in 1801 he went back to Europe. 

In these minutes a question is asked, " Who are 
the superintendents this year ? " And for several 
years it reads "Coke and Asbury," and alter a 
while a note appears in all the minutes from 1809 
to the end of the volume. (This note appears imme- 
diately after the mention of the superintendents' 
names.) " Dr. Coke, at the request of the British 



102 METHODISM. 

Conferences and by consent of our General Confet. 
enee, resides in Europe ; he is not to exercise the 
office of superintendent among us in the United 
States until he be recalled by the General Confer- 
ence, or by all the annual Conferences respectively. " 
Now one word with regard to what Charles 
Wesley thought of all this, and then a few words in 
relation to the system. Charles Wesley wrote a 
letter to the Rev. Dr. Chandler, who was about to 
come to this country, and only a little while before 
his death, in which he alludes to this very matter 
and gives his opinion of this action of his brother. 
He says that he was compelled to withdraw from 
him in his old age so far as their partnership in the 
Methodist Society was concerned, although he 
could never withdraw his friendship and his love. 
Charles did a great deal toward helping John 
Wesley by paying his debts and otherwise, but 
always opposed him on this question of the Meth- 
odist preachers in this country claiming the title 
of Bishop for their superintendent. Ton remember 
that couplet he composed : 

"Bishops are now so easy made 

By man or woman's whim, 
Wealey his hands on Coke hath laid, 

But who laid hands on him ? " 

He speaks of it as being a schism, something 
which up to that time they so steadily set their faces 
against, and still up to the death of Mr. Wesley set. 
their faces against, so far as the old country was 
concerned. Not until after Mr. Wesley's death did 
anything like separation take place between the 
Methodists and the Church in England, and then 
solely because of some uneasy men who had risen to 
prominence during the last year of his life, and now 
had control of matters. What was the result? 
The Methodists split up into ten or twelve frag- 
ments in the old country. In this country, notwith- 
standing the adoption of an episcopal government 
as being the best form, it has split up into a dozen 
fragments. 



METHODISM. 103 

Its system was almost complete. 

I suppose it would be almost unheard of to say that 
the Methodists were particularly strong on the sub- 
ject of confession. And auricular confession at 
that. Somebody will say that is not so. That I 
am slandering the people whom I profess to love 
with all my heart and soul. But the first rule was 
to gather members of the society into what was 
called Bands. Each person was here to state ex- 
plicitly and clearly, not merely the sins he had com- 
mitted during the week past, but the temptations 
to which he had been exposed, and how he met 
them. Members were to be asked specific ques- 
tions on this subject. It was the duty of the per- 
sons in charge of the bands to know the spiritual 
condition of every man and woman connected with 
the band. On account of the character of their 
sins the men met in bands by themselves, and the 
women by themselves. But this feature of Method- 
ism did not last long. This was an entirely differ- 
ent thing from what is popularly known as the Class 
Meeting. A class meeting was a larger body in 
which persons related, not their sins but, their ex- 
periences, and God's way of dealing with them, 
how they stood with God, etc. After a while these 
recitals became almost stereotyped as to language. 

Little by little the Bands ceased to be, because 
it was a too searching way of dealing with the peo- 
ple, and too public. As long as the bands held to- 
gether I believe Methodism was absolutely impreg- 
nable. As a society in the bosom of the Church 
for searching each other's consciences, as they did, 
requiring specific statements of sins, and the temp- 
tations that led to the sins, the way of dealing with 
temptations, it was a marvellous power to arouse 
the Church from the deadness into which she had 
fallen. The clergy sprang into a new life by the in- 
fluence of these people. So that to-day the Church 
of England owes very much under God to the 
Methodists, because the clergy were stirred out of 



04 METHODISM. 

the lethargy into which they had fallen. They 
learned to appreciate the beauties of the matchless 
liturgy of the Church, the importance of observing 
Holy Days, the frequent and reverent reception 
of the Lord's Body and Blood: increased atten- 
dance at the Church, the faithful baptizing and 
teaching of children. 

The first symptom of the decay of real piety 
amongst the Methodists came with the loss of 
Bands; then the carelessness of attendance at 
Class meetings. There was a time not so long ago, 
when Methodists must attend Class meeting if they 
were to be considered in good standing. That day 
has passed. In great cities there are but very few 
classes, and it is the very young and enthusiastic, 
or the very old who go to them. 

Another matter which tended to its great strength 
was its itinerancy: its system of Circuits. In the 
early days the Methodist preacher had no abiding 
place. He could really say in the words of their 
own poet. 

" No foot of land do I possess, 
Nor cottage in this wilderness." 

He could not say that there was any spot on earth 
that was his own: he could only wait for the 
opening of the door to his home in the mansions of 
Heaven. That day too has passed. Then the 
preachers had no dwelling place. Later on they 
came to stay three months at one place, then six 
months, then a year, then two years. It is but a 
little while, ago that the length of residence was 
extended and there is even now, I believe, a move- 
ment on foot to further extend the term. 

Another thing, too, was the revival system. 
The Methodists had great faith in what was called 
instantaneous conversion. With the assumption of 
the right to administer Holy Communion them- 
selves there came, singularly enough, a neglect of 
its administration. I wish you to think of that. 
While the Methodists remained in communion with 



METHODISM. 105 

the Oharch, one of the chief ideas was the frequent 
reception of the Holy Communion. So soon as the 
Methodists ceased to be in communion with the 
Church, and had ministrations of their own, came 
the neglect of the Holy Communion, the very re- 
verse of what you would expect from their theory. 
Now you will observe however, that having min- 
isters of their own to satisfy their wants, with 
their professed admiration for the ordinances of 
the Church, and their desire to have Holy Com- 
munion administered every Sunday — it might rea- 
sonably be expected that one of the very first 
things in the Methodist Discipline would be to re- 
quire that the Holy Communion should be admin- 
istered every Sunday at least. It is only admin- 
istered once a quarter now: except, perhaps in 
some city Churches, and even then it is administer- 
ed in many ways not unlike the Presbyterians. 
But observe: the Methodists have always clung to 
a liturgy, this may be denied in some quarters; but 
it is a fact. Mr. Wesley prepared a prayer book 
for them. Only a few copies of it are still extant. 
It was prepared for the Methodists in this country, 
and was suppressed ostensibly because sufficient 
copies could not be carried around in the saddle- 
bag of the itinerant. Really however, I know, 
that it was feared that it might train people for 
the Church. Nevertheless there is a fragment of 
liturgy in the book which is called the book of Dis- 
cipline. There is the solemnization of Matrimony, 
Baptism of children, Baptism of those of riper 
years, the Lord's Supper and the Burial of the 
dead, Che language taken almost word for word 
from the book of Common Prayer. Here and there 
a few expressions are omitted, and prominence 
given to extemporaneous prayer, still the origin of 
the book is visible. I was very much amused on 
hearing of a Methodist who stepped into a book 
store, and picked up a book of Common Prayer. 
After studying it, attentively for a few minutes ha 



106 METHODISM. 

exclaimed, "Why the Episcopalians have stolen 
our form of service ! " 

Now the question which confronts us is just this: 
What is there that stands in the way of Union be- 
tween ourselves and the people from whom doctrin- 
ally we have so little difference ? The Methodists 
are now the Low Churchmen of the Episcopal 
Church without valid Bishops. How are the 
mighty fallen ? With the neglect of the Sacra- 
ments of which I spoke, there came the loss of the 
idea of regeneration by Baptism, and hence there 
came the adoption of the sectarian meaning applied 
to that word. In the mind of the Church regener- 
ation is not synonymous with conversion: but with 
the Methodise, these words for the most part are 
synonymous. Regeneration is, with us, an act not 
necessarily a state. With the Methodists, it is now 
(it was not in the beginning) a state, not an act. 
We hold that by Baptism a man is born again into 
the family of God: an act which may not necessar- 
ily change his nature: we hope it does, but it may 
not neccssarilly do so. Willi the Methodists, re- 
generation is that spiritual condition which we call 
conversion. Conversion means with us, a state of 
being turned to God. In the minds ot the Method- 
ists it means an act. The two things are reversed 
exactly. In our judgment men are always being 
converted to God, always turning to God; always 
getting nearer to him. With the Methodists it is 
an instantaneous act. A man may be guilty of sin 
for, say thirty years of his life: he may come to the 
mourner's bench and after some prayers and certain 
subjective means he is told that God has forgiven 
his sins. The very men who object to absolution by 
priests of the Church pour absolution over a whole 
congregation and tell poor souls that if they only 
ask for forgiveness they are forgiven. The Church 
does not teach that doctrine. The Church holds 
that something else depends upon conversion than 
merely being sorry for your sins : there must be 



METH0DI8M. 107 

the undoing of sin as far as possible. The thief 
must restore what he has stolen: the slanderer 
must clear the name of those whom he has slan- 
dered, even at the expense of his own good name : 
the adulterer shall in some way make compensation 
for the wrongs he has done. In every way there 
must be something done by the man, as well as 
feeling sorry for his sins. And consequently there 
has come to be what is known as backsliding; men 
are converted and two-thirds of them become back- 
sliders during the year and are re-converted the 
next winter in a revival, or during the summer at 
a camp-meeting. Why, religion has been brought 
into contempt by these means. Men come to think 
oi it as a mere surface thing, a subjective thing 
altogether. If a man happens not to feel it this 
month maybe he will the next month or next year. 
Now what stands in the way of union with the Church? 
Pride. The Methodists have become a great body, 
a marvellous body, with many holy people and ex- 
cellent institutions, and to acknowledge that their 
ministers are not lawfully ordained would be a very, 
very hard thing to do. Perhaps they may fancy it 
would be to come again into bondage to profitless 
ceremonies. Why it is just as impossible to separ- 
ate forms and ceremonies from true worship, as it is 
to separate the soul from the body without death. 
You cannot do it. The God that gave to the immor- 
tal soul a body, gave to religion its body, and who 
among us shall say, " Which of these is superior ?" 
In fact we have come to fancy that the soul is su- 
perior to the body, and believe that this question of 
religion has only to do with the soul. God gave us 
both soul and body; Christ died for them both; it is 
in our body we are to be judged, and these bodies 
are the very same that are to be clothed with crowns 
and which are to walk in the streets of the New 
Jerusalem with harps and palm branches, shouting 

''Victory." This is Methodist theology, and very 

jood theology it is. 



108 METHODISM. 

Now, what is to hinder their coming back to us ? 
Pride, I say. Who is to lead, who is to give up ? 
I am willing to give up anything possible. I would 
be almost willing to give up my candles if the Meth- 
odists would come into the Church in a body, were 
that concession essential to the union. But to give 
up the thing which is absolutely at stake, my 
priestly authority, that is to ask something which 
is not in the power of man to do. The Methodist 
minister has no authority. The only authority that 
he exercises is derived from the consent of the 
people to whom he ministers. That he does his 
duty, or what he conceives to be his duty, in the 
very best way known to him, and with desire for 
the salvation of many souls, I do not doubt in the 
least. That is not the point. There were holy 
men, Koran, Dathan and Abiram, sanctified men, 
who presumed to execute the work of the priestly 
office, whom God for his own honor was compelled 
to punish with death. And so the Methodist body 
is being punished. She sees on every hand the 
abandonment of almost all the principles with which 
she set out. I need not recite them to you. You 
know them. ' * The reading of those books, or sing- 
ing of those songs that do not tend to the knowl- 
edge or love of God. The using of many words in 
buying or selling, taking those amusements that 
cannot be taken in the name of the Lord Jesus, the 
wearing of gold and silver and costly apparel, the 
braiding of the hair, the softness of living and 
needless self-indulgence." We see change and 
decay on every hand. These points are fast losing 
their hold upon Methodist minds, and, to be short, 
the Methodist Episcopal Church of to-day is only 
another name for Presbyterianism without its Cal- 
vinism. 



VI. 

\gapt\Bts <mfc C&mpM(\tte+ 

I am told, but I scarcely know how to believe it, 
that some people do not like controversy. I am 
impressed with the idea that it is always the other 
man that does not like controversy. I am inclined 
to think that people are not true to themselves who 
say that they do not like controversy: for my expe- 
rience has been that the people that say they do not 
like controversy arc generally controversialists. 

At all events, whether some people do or do not like 
it, it cannot be said of the Baptists and Campbellites, 
of whom I speak to-day, that they do not like con 
troversy. It is their very life. Without it the 
earth would be a very dismal place. There are 
some people who like food, and some people who 
like drink, and a great many people who like 
pleasure, and a great many people who like riches ; 
but what the Campbellites enjoy above food, and 
pleasure, and drink, and riches, is controversy. 
They are the living, thriving examples of what con- 
troversy has done. If they are not controversial 
ists, they are nothing upon the face of the earth. 
I hope now that will answer some of the mawkish 
sentimentality I have heard in the last few weeks. 

I want to say right here that I am understood as 
intending to offend one section of people, of whom I 
propose to speak to-day, by calling them " Camp- 
bellites." I speak of them as Campbellites first, 
because it is their natural distinction. Second, 
because it would grievously embarrass my utterance 
if I must stop every five minutes to explain when I 
use the word Christian that I do not necessarily 
.nean a Campbellite. 

I speak of them together, Baptists and Camo- 



110 BAPTISTS AND CAMPBELLITEb 

Elites, because to my mind there is no good rear 
son why they should be separated. Nine-tenths oi 
all which each believes is precisely the same. 
They are joined together in men's minds. They re- 
ject the union on the ground of incompatibility. 
But the Catholic Church does not grant divorce on 
the ground of incompatibility. So I must therefore 
be permitted to speak of them, at least for some 
time, as though they were united. It must also be 
evident to you that I cannot go into all the points 
in controversy. That would take two or three 
weeks. I believe that they have been debated in 
times past and for days upon days together — waste 
time I think because, if we can get at the root 
ideat if we can lop off the tree an inch or two 
above the ground even, we shall effectually dispose 
of all the branches. And I want to turn my at- 
tention to-day, and turn your attention for a little 
time, i you will give it to me, to the root of the 
differences. 

1 have no doubt in the world, that a great many 
people are here to-day under the impression that 1 
am going into the question of Baptism, whether it 
should be sprinkling or pouring or dipping. Well 
now, I might do that. I might do that ! And just 
fancy what a name 1 might secure lor myself by 
exhibiting all the beauties of the Greek grammar, 
as you so often hear in such debates. When 1 
had taken up Baptizo and Baptizmos and rung all 
the changes of all the tenses and moods; considered 
it as a noun, considered it as an adjective, and 
made my self partly insane over it as a verb, what a 
magnificent effort I should have made ? Well now 
I am not going to trouble the Greek grammar at 
all, and I am" afraid that I shall fall ^e:y i»>*i in 
your esteem, when I assure you that I do not intern) 
to talk to you in either Latin or Greek. A great 
mistake on my part no doubt. But I will not talk 
in Latin or Greek to-day. For ny pan I do not 
care whether the individual is baptized *itl/ three 



BAPTISTS AND CAMPBELLITES. Ill 

drops of water or with three thousand oceans. It 
is not a question that disturbs me at all. Asd let 
me tell you, that for fifteen hundred and odd years 
it never disturbed anybody. All the tumults that 
have been created about the quantity of water that 
was necessary for the regeneration of the human 
soul, have been the product of a very few years in- 
deed. Now and then water has been turned on 
full head by some reformer, but, ordinarily, nobody 
ever was troubled about this matter until a very 
little while ago. A Church that has existed for 
eighteen hundred and odd years does not trouble 
itself about the little ripples that appear upon its 
surface in a century or two. 

First of all, I want to meet the charge which is 
hurled so persistently and gratuitously at our 
Church. I learn partly from some among the mul- 
titudes that come here Sunday after Sunday, and 
partly from that organ which imagines itself more 
infallible than the Pope of Rome, the daily press, 
that I am attacking somebody. I say here and 
now that I have never opened my lips with regard 
to any religious body which has not within the past 
three months, particularly and by name, leveled 
its shafts against the Church of which I am a 
priest, and, if I must be personal, at the particular 
Church of which I am the rector. .1 speak from 
absolute knowledge. So that in fact instead of 
being an attacker I am on the defense. 

The charge of arrogancy made against our 
Church is most generally made by Campbellites 
and Baptists, in which they declare that we are 
exclusive — that we unchurch all other churches: 
that we do not admit ministers of other religious 
bodies to our pulpits: that, in fact, we despise the 
work of Christian enterprise which they have or 
hand. 

That is the popular statement. I reply by say- 
ing, that it is true the Church does not acknow- 
ledge that any man is a priest who has not been oss 



112 BAPTISTS AND CAMPBBLLITBS. 

dained in regular apostolic succession, and in a 
communion of which Bishops, Priests, and Deacons, 
have from time immemorial been officers. It is 
true that we believe that all the ministers of the 
various Protestant bodies about us are schismatic, 
and that they cannot administer the Sacraments, 
that their hands profane the Blessed Sacrament, 
and that they are blind leaders of the blind, and 
that they are a peril to men's souls, and that as they 
teach erroneous and false doctrine it is the bounden 
duty of every priest of the Church by every means 
in his power not merely to resist it when it ap- 
proaches him but, if necessary, to go out to meet 
it, and repel it, as something inimical to the salva- 
tion of mankind. But, as for arrogancy, if any 
body desires to see arrogancy in its naked unlove- 
liness, commend me to the Baptists. With the ex- 
ception of the Campbellites, there is not a body 
upon the face of the earth more arrogant, more im- 
pertinent, more exclusive than the Baptists. 

Now, strike but hear. If it is said we unchurch 
other denominations, it is truly said of the Baptists, 
that they de-Christianize every man outside their 
own sect. Now did you get that expression cor- 
rectly ? It is not that they unchurch other people, 
but that they refuse to believe that they are Chris- 
tians at all! You are thinking now that I am 
making a very unwarranted statement, and young 
gentlemen who may be present and are candidates 
for the Baptist ministry will fancy that I am going 
beyond the beyonds. But they are entirely mis- 
taken. I can show from their books, that they hold 
no man outside of the Baptist communion to be a 
Christian at all. Unless the English language can 
be perverted into something which is absolutely 
impossible to conceive, that is their distinct, posi- 
tive statement; not by imputation, not by inference, 
but in exact language. Let us take their defini- 
tions. 

T have made it a rule of my life not to take what 



BAPTISTS AND CAMPBELLITES. 113 

somebody else says about people. I take what they 
say about themselves. I now hold in my hand 
the Baptist Church Directory. I am about to ask 
the question "What is a Church?" And this is 
the answer. " A Christian Church is a congrega- 
tion of baptized believers in Christ worshipping to 
gether." I say here that I have no objection to 
that definition. I ask you however, to remember 
every word of it- "A Christian Church is a con- 
gregation of baptized believers m Christ worship- 
ping together." Let that get into your minds. 
Now of course we are desirous of knowing who are 
the "baptized believers" that constitute this 
( ' Christian Church. " I hold here in my hand a vol- 
ume entitled "Missiles of Truth." A missile, ac- 
cording to Mr. Webster, is something that is thrown 
out with the intention ot hitting something. These 
are Baptist missiles thrown out, with the inten- 
tion of hitting somebody. I learn here on page 
139 what constitutes scriptural and valid Baptism. 
1 ' First, The scriptural action, that is immersion 
in water in the name of the Holy Trinity. 
Second, The scriptural subject, a penitent be- 
liever in Jesus Christ who is conscious of pardon. 
Thirdly, The scriptural design, not a condition 
or means of obtaining remission of sins, but 
an emblematic or symbolic declaration of fact- 
Fourth, A scriptural administrator or regularly 
ordained minister of the Gospel. The want of any 
of these four things invalidates the ordinance and 
renders it null and void. And certain it is that not 
any one of these four essentials is more important 
than the administrator by whom the ordinance is 
performed, and without whose agency Baptism 
could not exist.'' This is the statement made in 
what is called the "Missiles of Truth." It does not 
exactly correspond with the utterance of the Baptist 
Church Directory, which on page 36 says, speaking 
ol Baptism and the Lord's Supper, "Both ordi- 
nances are usually administered by ministers; but 



114 BAPTISTS AND CAMPBELLITES. 

should the church so direct, would doubtless be 
valid if administered by a private member of the 
church." 

A great point to be considered is, that the Bap- 
tist Church here lays stress upon the fact that the 
administrator must be a regularly ordained minis- 
ter: no one else, not even a baptized layman, is en- 
titled to administer these Sacraments. I make 
this statement in the nice of the fact that in another 
book it is also declared that a private member of 
the church may do it. But if there is one thing 
shown more clearly in the utterances of the Bap- 
tists, it is that a regularly ordained minister, and 
nobody else, must administer this Sacrament. And 
moreover the Baptist Church declares in its publi- 
cations that no one but a Baptist minister is a 
regularly ordained minister of the Gospel. 

If it be charged upon me that I am now making 
a statement which is not carried out in truth and 
in fact, I appeal to their own books. When you 
see Baptist ministers who are willing to acknowl- 
edge that there are such things as Presbyterian 
ministers and Episcopalian ministers, though they 
do not like to admit that there are such things, and 
even Oampbellite ministers, they do so in distinct 
violation of the publications they put into the 
hands of the young men who are being trained for 
their ministry. They hold that no man can be a 
regularly ordained minister of the Gospel unless he 
is a Baptist; and that not even their brothers-in- 
law, the Campbellites, are ministers in any sense. 

In fact I am compelled, to believe from my read- 
ing of their books, that while they would be willing 
almost to shake hands with me, they would have 
nothing whatever to do with the Campbellites. I 
was surprised! I thought — I thought they were in 
the habit of taking half-holidays together, and en- 
joying themselves! But I was mistaken. Now as 
a proof of that let me read you some extracts from 
fckdir book*. "The founder and first ministers of 



BAPTISTS AND CAMPBELLITES. 115 

Campbellisra were all Pedobaptists and brought 
these errors with them, and unfortunately some 
Baptists have incautiously adopted Campbellite and 
Pedobaptist phraseology on these points and hence 
the world imagines that we hold the same errors in 
regard to Christ's kingdom. Baptism to be valid 
must be scriptural in its mode, in its subjects, its 
design and its administrator, and such baptism can 
be found only in Baptist churches. " 

I am now reading from page 180 of the " Missiles 
of Truth" by Gardiner. "Scriptural ordination is 
essential to valid administration of the ordinance 
and none but regular Baptist churches can confer 
such ordination. All admit that an apostate 
church is not a church of Christ and therefore can- 
not confer valid baptism and ordination. The 
Roman Catholic Church is confessedly an apostate 
church." (I do not know who confessed it. It 
could not have been the Campbellites; they are op- 
posed to confession of any kind, even to a confes- 
sion of their faith. ) * ' The Roman Catholic Church 
is confessedly an apostate church" (if the reporters 
will put a query after that I will be satisfied), "and 
all protestant Pedobaptists received their baptism 
and ordination from that Church. Therefore pro- 
testant Pedobaptists are destitute of valid baptism 
and ordination, and consequently they are not in 
the visible kingdom of Christ, though many of them 
are fit subjects for baptism." How happy, how 
grateful I am to think that though I have never 
been baptized, and never been ordained, yet that, 
may be, of course only may be, by a stretch of the 
charity of the good Baptist brother on the other 
square, I may be a fit subject for Baptism! 

But to resume. "Now all agree that valid 
baptism is indispensable to visible Church member- 
ship, and if Pedobaptists be destitute of such bap- 
tism they are not members of Gospel churches. 
As we have shown, all Christ's churches are in His 
kingdom and composed of citizens o/that. kingdom 



116 BAPTI8T8 AND CAMPBELLITES. 

and if Pedobaptists (the word Pedobaptist means 
persons who baptize infants) — if Pedobaptists be 
not in Christ's kingdom they cannot be His church- 
es. They may be subjects of His kingdom in heart, 
and as such fit subjects for admission, but being 
destitute of valid baptism they are neither mem- 
bers of the kingdom nor members of Gospel 
churches." You see I am not only not a minister, 
but I am not even a member of Christ's Church, ac- 
cording to the Baptists. And this in fact is the 
correct reason why Baptists cannot and ought not 
to commune with others at the Lord's Table; for it 
is a Church ordinance, as all admit, and none but 
Church members have a right to partake of it. 

On page 253 of these u Missiles of Truth" it is 
said, lt We can and do hold Christian communion 
in all scriptural ways with those of other denomi- 
nations whom we regard as Christians, but we do 
not and never can regard Campbelhtes and Pedo- 
baptists as qualified communicants, or their 
churches as Gospel churches, which we do by in- 
tercommunion." Now you will observe the utter 
inconsistency of these people. In order that it 
may be absolutely apparent to you I read now from 
the Baptist Church Directory, page 152, "All 
evangelical Christian churches profess to take Holy 
Scripture as their only and sufficient guide in mat- 
ters of faith and doctrine." I am only concerned 
with the first four words, il All evangelical Chris- 
tian churches." They have just declared that 
there can be no evangelical Christian Church other 
than the Baptist church. They hold that in order 
to become a Christian you must be baptized. I hold 
that also. But in order to be baptized you must 
be immersed. If you are not immersed you have 
not been baptized. If you have not been baptized 
you are not a Christian. And notwithstanding the 
fact that multitudes of people outside of their own 
communion have never been immersed, they still 
talk here in their Directory of, evangelical Chris- 






BAPTISTS AND CAMPBELLITES. 117 

tian churches! All mere buncombe, of course. 
Why, the j do not believe that there is any such 
thing as an evangelical Christian Church, inasmuch 
as a Christian Church must be made up of Chris- 
tian people, and there are no Christian people 
unless they have been immersed. Now as the 
enormous majority of people calling themselves 
Christians have never been immersed, therefore 
the inference is absolutely clear that no pei-sons are 
Christians but those of their own sect. I am proud 
of the Baptists that they stand so faithfully by their 
colors. I am ashamed that their colors are no bet- 
ter than they are. 

Regarding the claim of the Baptists, what is 
the logical inference? The logical inference is, 
in order to prove that they have a right to exist, 
they must show an apostolic succession, or else 
they must acknowledge, that Christ's promise to 
be with His Church unto the end of the world has 
failed, and it will never do to acknowledge that 
Christ's promise has failed. Therefore I say it 
is absolutely incumbent upon them to show some 
kind of Apostolic succession. 

Now I suppose a good many of you people, who 
are not already within the bounds of this highly ar- 
rogant and exclusive church called the Episcopal 
Church; I say a great many of you fancy that no- 
body, outside of the Catholic Church or the Roman 
Catholic Church, ever dreamed of claiming Apostol- 
ical Succession. But you are entirely mistaken. 
The most urgent clamorersfor Apostolic Succession 
are our Baptist brel hren ! Now you think I am 
misstating facts do you not ? I here pledge my 
honor in saying, that in the book published by Mr. 
Ray, entitled "Baptist Succession" he is most 
positively desirous of tracing the succession of the 
Baptist Church back to the Apostles, but I need 
not go beyond the little manual which I have 
here in my hand. You have no idea how I enjoy 
these little manuals of our brethren around! 



118 BAPTISTS AND CAMPBELLITES. 

The Baptists themselves recognize the necessity 
of showing some mark of succession. It was in- 
cumbent upon them, because, as there could be no 
Christian man unless he was immersed, as he 
could not be immersed unless — (I would not have 
that Missile lost for the world), [here a book fell 
from the pulpit] — unless there is a regularly ordain- 
ed minister to baptize him, and as the regularly 
baptized minister must have been himself baptized 
by a regularly baptized minister, and as this must 
have gone back to the beginning (and by the 
way I believe they claim John Baptist as their 
originator) why it is necessary they should show 
a succession and, behold, they do ! They do not 
want to do it. But as they must do it, behold, 
they have an embarrassment of riches 1 

The Baptist Church is fortunate: it has more than 
it wants. They do not want an Apostolic succes- 
sion for they can get along without it. Not be- 
cause they cannot authenticate it. For here they 
they say, on page 244 of the Baptist Directory, 
that they trace their origin during the first two 
centuries through the Messalians, the Euchites, 
and the Montanists 1 In the third, fourth and fifth 
centuries through the Novatians and the Donatists ! 
In the seventh century through the Paulicians! 
And all these, they claim, profess to hold the New 
Testament as the only rule of faith and practice, and 
to live by its teachings, and therefore held the 
views of the Baptists ! ! ! 

Well let us enquire for a moment. (I must not 
forget my dear friends to whom I am coining.) 
Who are these Euchite3, through whom the Bap- 
tists claim succession? They were people who re- 
jected Baptism ! They believed that every man 
was born with a devil, and they prayed to the 
devil ! Most worthy ancestors indeed ! 

The Montanists were a sort of Methodists. Good 
people, fanatics, but good. They baptized their 
people in the name of the Father, the Son and 



BAPTISTS AND CAMPBELLITES. 119 

Montanus, their leader, whom they claimed was the 
Paraclete or Holy Ghost. This is another body 
through whom the Baptists claim succession ! 
Novatians, through whom they claim succession, 
taught that there was no salvation, if a person fell 
into sin after Baptism ! The Donatists, through 
whom they claim succession, baptized infants, were 
very strong Episcopalians, and would have been 
thunder-struck to learn that the Baptists claimed 
any sort of relationship with them ! They claim 
connection with the Apostles through the Pauli- 
cians. The Paulicians believed in the essential 
evil of matter. They denied the inspiration of the 
Old Testament, and utterly abolished the Euchar- 
ist ! These are the sects through whom the Bap- 
tists claim Apostolic Succession ! See the absurdity 
of the position on their own showing. 

Well now, take any historian you please, and 
you will find that for centuries, for centuries ob- 
serve, there was no such thing known as non-bap- 
tism of infants. The Baptists claim that infants no 
matter how they are baptized whether by sprink- 
ling, or pouring, or immersion even, are not truly 
baptized. Worse than that. The Baptists will 
not receive Baptism from a Campbellite preacher 
on the ground that it is " alien immersion?" and 
that they are utterly and thoroughly opposed to 
alien immersion. I learn that from the " Missiles." 

Now what is the true history of the Baptists ? 
Simply this. They grew out of one of Ihe most 
turbulent and fanatical sects that ever disgraced 
Christendom, the Anabaptists. They do not like to 
acknowledge that now, and they disown their father 
or mother — I do not know which it was — but they 
disown their parent whichever it was. They re- 
ject the idea that they came out from the Anabap- 
tists, yet nothing is more absolutely certain in his- 
tory. I had a controversy once with a Baptist 
preacher, in which he said that ecclesiastical his- 
torians declare that the history of the Baptists is 



120 BAPTISTS AND CAAIPBELLITES. 

so old that it was hidden in the remote depths of 
antiquity. I acknowledged that Mosheim searched 
the remotest antiquity without discovering any 
history of the Baptists, but that Mosheim never 
said anything of the kind and, in fact, he never 
alludes to the Baptists as such, other than in 
connection with Anabaptists. 

The Baptists of to-day are violently opposed to 
the union of their names with the Anabaptists, be- 
cause they know them to have been a vile and de- 
graded sect. John Smith — charming name — in the 
time of Charles the First, was the originator of the 
Baptists in England, and John Smith never was 
baptized by a regularly ordained minister, nor by 
one who had received baptism by immersion. And 
in this country although, now, they try to escape it, 
Roger Williams, who was immersed by an unim- 
mersed layman, and who in turn immersed the lay- 
man, was the real originator of the Baptist church 
in this country. Oh ! I have a number of things 
here; but I must get on to my other friends the 
Campbellites. 

You observe I put the books away; the Camp- 
bellites have no books. 

The one desire of every modern sect is to show in 
some way or another its existence in Apostolic 
days. It is you observe, an unconscious testimony 
to the doctrine of the Apostolic Succession. It is 
that groping in the dark after something to bind 
this age to the age of the Apostles. Now we are 
told by Mr. Campbell, that the one desire of his 
soul — and I give him credit for it — was to abolish 
sectarianism. And in order to abolish sectarian- 
ism he founds a sect ! But Mr. Campbell was a 
wise man, a godly man, and a very prince of con- 
troversialists. [Talk about a Clergyman of the 
Church desiring controversy ! Why— why the 
babies in a Compbellite family learn to debate. It 
is born in their bones. They will answer your 
question with another.] I say that he saw the 



BAPTISTS AND CAMPBELLITIS. 121 

folly of trying to reach the Apostolic age by strug- 
gling backward through all the centuries. It was 
too much for him. 

There are two ways of traversing a great river. 
One is by starting at the mouth and going towards 
the source. The other is by beginning at the 
source and going towards the mouth. Very 
different things. Different scenery altogether. 
Mr. Campbell saw how impossible it would be in 
the nineteenth century, to go back to Apostolic times 
by traversing the centuries to our Blessed Lord's 
ascension into Heaven. What does he do? He 
says himself, that his method was to project himself 
into the Apostolic days, and then argue out what 
a Church ought to be from the circumstances of the 
times and the surroundings. 

That was heroic, was it not ? One of the great 
difficulties must have been that he was not one of 
the eleven Apostles. He says that he did project 
himself into those times, and tried to consider with- 
in himself just what a condition the Church was in 
at that time. And then he said to himself, ''The 
wisest method of development is in such and such 
a direction." He thought he saw where evils crept 
into the Church. He thought he saw how evils 
might have been prevented from creeping into the 
Church, if only the churches of that time had had 
the assistance of his most valuable advice. But he 
determined that in arranging for his church, he 
would cause its development to move along the lines 
that he would have chosen, had he lived in the first 
century. 

It was ingenious and it was very bold. But 
singularly enough the Church did not develop in 
that way from the first century. What was Mr. 
Campbell's stock in trade ? There was a popular 
creed amongst the people at that time, started by 
the way, by a clergyman of our Church (Mr. 
Campbell is indebted to a clergyman of our Church 
for the backbone of his institution. ) That creed 



122 BAPTISTS AND CAMPBELUTES. 

was "The Bible and the Bible only is the only religion 
of Protestants." These words were the utterance 
of Mr. Chillingworth not of Mr. Campbell. And 
that became the very backbone of their institution. 
It was an easy thing to go out before the world, 
and he thought it was a grand thing too, and to 
say "The Bible, the Bible only is the religion of 
Protestants." It may have been a grand thing, 
and it was certainly an easy thing for this reason: 
People are always ready to accept the statement 
that this book is the Bible. And for a man to say, 
' ' Here is a book which all nations, all men acknow- 
ledge to be the word of God. Now let us reject all 
creeds and confessions of faith and settle ourselves 
down upon this book." Of course it was what peo- 
ple might call, if they were inclined to sneer, a catch- 
penny trick, a very taking one — immensely taking; 
— showing great knowledge of human nature, ex- 
hibiting great wisdom on his part, provided, — pro- 
vided, — that he could prove it 

But how did Mr. Campbell come to know that 
this book is the Word of God ? I ask you, if there 
are any members of that religious body here, how 
do you know that this is the Bible ? Have you 
ever asked that question at all of yourselves ? Did 
he ever ask it of himself? Did he ever write about 
it, or speak about it? He might have done so, 
but the question will bear repeating. "How did he 
know that this is the Bible?" How does any man 
know that this is the Bible ? On whose authority 
is it received and believed ? He says that it is the 
inspired Word of God. Who authenticates this 
Book ? Who sets it forth with such marks of ap- 
proval as that it can be compelled upon the consci- 
ences of men? That is the great question to be 
considered. 

Now I make a statement. In this I am open to 
correction; I have the impression that our good 
friends of what is known as the Christian Church, the 
Campbellite Church have very little use for the Old 



BAPTISTS AND CAMPBELUTES. 128 

Testament, that it relates to a system and a time 
that have gone by. It is only the New Testament 
that they stand by. I am told too, that they are 
great Bible students. I wonder if they really read 
the Bible ? First of all I call to mind the fact that 
eighteen hundred and odd years ago there was no 
such thing as printing. I want you to take that 
into your minds now. Eighteen hundred years 
ago we had no volume of the Bible printed. 
Eighteen hundred years ago the vast masses of 
mankind could not read the Bible, if the Bible 
had been given to them to read. Get that into 
your minds. In the next place the Gospels and 
Epistles that compose the book that we call the 
New Testament, were written at various times and 
were directed to various people. There is no state- 
ment whatever in Holy Scripture that they were 
intended to be collected together to form what is 
now called the New Testament. Try now to think 
of that. And I think that these undoubted facts 
are fatal to your position ! 

That there was an Epistle written to the Corin- 
thians, another to the Romans, another to the 
Ephesians; and so on, to the Philippians, Galatians, 
Thessalonians, and to some individuals Timothy, 
and Titus; that they were sent at different times 
to different places, and different individuals; that 
all was in manuscript; that there was little inter- 
communion between these places, and that the 
last of these books was written very close to the 
year 100 A. D. Take also into consideration, 
that in the New Testament there is no system 
of theology at all, no dogmatic system whatever. 
That the Gospels are simply stories of our Lord's 
life, giving a very few of His works and words, 
and declaring that it they were all recorded the 
world itself could not contain the books. With 
regard to the Epistles they were written for specific 
purposes. Eacli for a specific purpose to a specific 
people. The idea, of circulating them amongst the 



124 BAPTISTS AND CAMrBELLITES. 

Churches grew up afterwards. Remember that for 
more than three hundred years there was no such 
thing in existence as the New Testament as it ap- 
pears to-day. Now turn that over in your minds. 

Three hundred years is a good slice of human ex- 
perience. Now if our Campbellite friends had no 
code of faith, no formal creed, and nothing to ap- 
peal to, and if our Lord instituted just such a 
Church as the Campbellite church, and if He pro- 
mised that " The gates of Hell should not prevail 
against it," how did they get along for over three 
hundred years without a scrap of foundation to 
stand on ? I do not suppose that even the longest 
lived Campbellite minister — and I have seen some 
very old ones — I do not suppose the longest lived 
of them lived more than three hundred years. 
What do you suppose they did all that time for 
some idea of doctrine and faith ? And how did a 
Campbellite get along without the New Testament 
in his hand, while the Baptists who were represent- 
ed by the Euchites, the Messalians, and the rest of 
them, were disputing the ownership of the King- 
dom of Heaven with him ? 

Then when the New* Testament was settled, who 
settled it ? Was it the Campbellite ministers ? No. 
No, it was the Bishops, Priests, and Deacons of 
our Church; I defy that to be challenged. We are 
responsible for the statement of the inspiration of 
Holy Scripture. There were dozens of books float- 
ing around through the country, and read in var- 
ious churches, as of equal importance with the 
books we now call canonical. The inspiration of 
Holy Scripture means that God the Holy Ghost did 
cause men to write these words. God did not come 
down from Heaven with a voice stating what books 
were to be received as inspired. There is no reve- 
lation in the New Testament as to which books are 
inspired. The inspiration or question of inspira- 
tion was taken up and debated, and it was agreed 
that this book was inspired and that that book was 



BAPTISTS AND CAMPBELLITES. 1& 

not i aspired. And mat agreement and judgment 
was made by the Ministers of the Catholic Church, 
and not by any sect on the face of the earth; even 
such a sect as the Campbellites. 

The Campbellites in common with most other 
sects, declare that their Church is founded upon 
the Bible. We reject such a theory for ourselves 
as unscriptural. What ! Found the Church upon 
the Bible ? Why the complete Bible was not in ex- 
istence, the New Testament was not in existence, 
for hundreds of years after the Christian Church 
was in full sway. The Church of the Living God is 
founded upon Jesus Christ, and not upon any book, 
even so grand a book as the Word of God. The 
Word of God is the utterance of the Church, not 
the thing on which the Church is founded. That 
ought to be thoroughly understood. 

Then again the Bible does not set forth any 
system of theology. It is used for proving a sys- 
tem, but it sets forth no system. 

Now look at the absurd position of our good 
brethren. They hold that not only is the Bible, 
and the Bible only, the religion of Protestants, but 
also that each man is his own interpreter of it. I 
have in my possession now the Testament trans- 
lated by Mr. Campbell himself. It differs in a good 
many ways from what is popularly called the 
•• authorized version." When we consider that 
even s'c email a thing as a single letter or puncuta- 
tion mark may grievously change the faith of a 
community, you can imagine how exceedingly jeal- 
ous we should be about the translation of Holy 
Scripture. 

But by what right did Mr. Campbell translate 
for his followers the New Testament? His theory 
is that each man is supreme in himself. Each man 
must take the New Testament in his own hand and 
reading it be governed, not hy its contents, but 
by what he supposes to be its contents. Well, so 
does the Unitarian; so does the Universalist; so 



126 BAPTISTS AND CAMPBELUTES. 

does the Baptist; so does the Presbyterian, and 
Methodist, and Quaker. These, who are utterly 
opposed to each other, all find warrant for their 
existence in the New Testament, to say nothing of 
the condemnation of their neighbors. By what 
right then can Mr. Campbell or anybody else say 
to a man, that his interpretation of Holy Scripture 
is alone correct ? He claims no more lor himself, 
surely, than he is willing to give to another man. 
You perceive therefore that each man must be a 
church for himself. Did I hear some one speak of 
arrogancy ? 

And now another thing. Did it ever occur to 
you that the New Testament as it appears in our 
Bible is not (strictly speaking) the New Testament 
at all ? Now do not think that I am making a very 
rash assertion. Did it ever occur to you that this 
is not the New Testament at all ? That it is only a 
translation of the New Testament ? When there- 
fore Mr. Campbell advised his people to take the 
New Testament in their hands, and each man, 
without a formal creed to guide and limit him, to 
go forth for himself, he meant to demand that every 
man shall be a Greek scholar ! There is no 
alternative. Now all you good people who belong 
to the Campbellite church who cannot read Greek 
for yourselves, know very well you are not in the 
church in which you ought to be; because, accord- 
ing to Campbellite theory, you have no right to 
take anybody's statement of what God says. If 
you do so you are accepting that man's creed, and 
you are a body of people that refuses to have a 
creed; and if you take my translation of what Holy 
Scripture says you are undoubtedly taking my 
creed. If you are baptized on that judgment your 
baptism is by faith in the competency of the minis- 
ter who translates Holy Scripture for you, and not 
in Jesus Christ. Think of that. 

Moreover as the Testament of original Greek was 
written in uncial characters, and without marks of 



BAPTISTS AND CAMPBELIJTES. 127 

punctuation, or division of chapters and verses, 
you must have been able to read these to know 
how to make the divisions for yourselves. And 
then after you have done all that, the ground is cut 
from under your feet, for you discover that without 
the Old Testament you cannot get along at all ; the 
New Testament is absolutely nothing without the 
Old. For when our Lord admonishes His followers 
to search the Scriptures, to what Scriptures did He 
refer ? The New Testament ? Not a line of it was 
written. It was of course the Old Testament. 
When St. Paul commends Timothy for his know- 
ledge of the Scriptures; what Scriptures did he 
mean ? It could not have been the New Testa- 
ment, it was not written. It was the Old. When 
St. Paul disputed for many days out of the Scrip- 
tures, and showed out of the Scriptures that Josus 
Christ must necessarily come and suffer, and die, 
and rise again, in order that the prophecies might 
be fulfilled what Scriptures did he quote? The 
New Testament was not written. It must have 
been the Old. So that you cannot get along with- 
out the Old Testament, and in order to know it 
you must know the Hebrew language. So then the 
Campbellite church, whether it is so, or not, ought 
to be the finest thing in creation; for it should not 
have any unintelligent persons in it, and of course it 
could never have children, (but I believe they do 
not want children.) It should not have persons 
that cannot read and understand both Greek and 
Hebrew, not only as it is now written but as it was 
written then, but then, it could not be a Church, 
for some provision must be made for the unlearned. 
Moreover as its members never can be sure from 
anybody's judgment (since they reject ours) that 
this is Holy Scripture, they must have access to the 
original manuscripts; and there are no such things 
now, upon the face of the earth. All that there 
now is are the copies of these manuscripts, and I 
do not suppose that any two of them perfectly agree. 



128 BAPTISTS AND CAMPBELLITES. 

Now you will observe that it was absolutely 
necessary there should be an authorized voice — 
some authority to say what was Holy Scripture, to 
say whether it was inspired or not, and to send it 
forth for the Church. And these people who are 
founding their hopes of salvation upon our say so, 
as to what books are inspired, are the people that 
reject our decisions with regard to the interpreta- 
tion of these books. You will observe here is ab- 
solute chaos, Hiaos in discipline and in doctrine. 

I am told each congregation is independent in it- 
self, that all shades of opinion are harbored in its 
several congregations, as of course, there must be, 
since no farther demand can be made of any one on 
becoming a member beyond, '-Do you believe Jesus 
Christ to be the Son of Goi ?" This is thought to 
be very beautiful on account of its simplicity. It is 
most bewildering on account of its simplicity. For 
as the various sects of protestantism differ, so wide- 
ly, so fundamentally, while claiming the immediate 
guidance of the Bible, so each congregation of 
Campbellites may. and in fact does differ from its 
fellow. Nay more, the individual differs from his 
brother in the same congregation, and as a fact the 
body is honeycombed with infidelity, the result of 
varying opinions; literally eaten out with the no- 
tions that have gained possession of it, and as is 
"well kuown, longing for a constitution, or for some- 
thing which can hold it together and save it from 
absolute dissolution. This last is an open secret. 

Finally there is no possible appeal from any de- 
cision of a Campbellite congregation. No matter 
what evil it does, there is no appeal. Almost every 
religious body has some court of appeal to which 
injured persons may resort. Here the supreme 
authority rests in the congregation. The congre- 
gation selects its own minister: from the congrega- 
tion his authority comes and not from Almighty 
God. An exact reversal of the original. Just the 
same precisely as if a district school were to meet 



BAPTISTS AND CAMPBELLITES. 129 

together and elect one of their number to be their 
teacher. You can see how chaos must necessarily 
descend upon such a conglomerate mass. 

I have not exposed all the dreadful evils of this 
body by any means. It is not a pleasant thing to 
undertake. I have chosen rather to confine my 
self for the most part to the one matter of the ridi- 
culous assumption of the right of each man to for- 
mulate a creed for himself while denying that he 
has a Creed; and to interpret the Word of God, as 
his learning or ignorance may dictate. That a 
large number of people has been deceived by this 
gross imposition is only to say that men are human, 
and that some men will not hesitate to ' ' rush in 
where Angels fear to tread. " On the other hand, 
and in spite of the system, if system it can be 
called, there are doubtless many holy souls among 
them, whom may God of His Infinite mercy bring 
into the way of Truth. 




VII. 

Q^ifatfan* an& oifytt ^nfiUte* 

This day, my brethren, is called in the Church 
Palm Sunday, because it is esteemed the anniver- 
sary of that day when our Divine Lord made His 
triumphal entry into the city of Jerusalem. His 
coming had been predicted by prophets of old and 
the people were all expecting Him. It was only 
difficult for them to identify the man of Nazareth 
with the promised Messiah. It was hai'd for them 
to think that this man, born in obscurity, of mean 
parents, should be the Hope atid Desire of Israel, 
the Sent of the Father, the Messiah, the Incarnate 
GOD. 

True, He performed many wonderful works and 
hope struggled against doubt. By one means or 
another He made His divine mission apparent to 
some of them, and yet there were always doubting 
hearts, not bad hearts you understand, but doubt 
ing hearts, that said: — "If we were only quite sure 
how gladly would we welcome Him." Ah ! there 
*-ss the rub. When God sent His only-begottei 
6on into the world, why did He permit men tc 
doubt His Deity ? Why did there not come such a 
olaze of glory, such a manifestation of His Godhood, 
of His identity with the promised Messiah that no 
place would have been left for doubt? Well, He 
did come with a blaze of glory, Angels heralded 
Mis birth with song, wise men travelling from afar 
brought tribute to His feet, Priests directed the 
feet of worship to his manger-throne, a King deso- 
lated a nation because of Him Surely there was 
no lack of attestations to His greatness, but doubt 
and disbelief are not easily satisfied. 

God. in His inscrutable wisdom, has not oftel 



132 UNITARIANS AND OTHER INFIDELS. 

plainly informed men as to the ways and means 
which it pleases Him to employ in His dealings 
with men, and we are therefore thrown back upon 
the question Why did he not do this ? It is the cry 
of our rebellious and unsatisfied hearts. And yet, 
from considerations of our nature and of His, of 
our relation to Him, it does seem as if even our 
own unaided intelligence might discover an answer 
which should reasonably satisfy us. Does not His 
dignity demand our obedience where our intelli- 
gence cannot follow ? Is it not a necessary conse- 
quence of His Godship, necessary for Him as for 
us ? 

Where would be our dependence, the exercise 
of our faith, our trust; were every proposition first 
submitted to the assent of our understanding ? 
Again what joy can equal the commendation of 
God ? Could any happiness be greater than the 
being praised by God ? But see how we would 
rob ourselves of this delight were we only to do or 
believe those things to the doing or believing of 
which we are compelled by an Almighty Master. 

So He committed His Divine Son to the free, un- 
compelled love of human hearts, to the faith that 
should surmount all difficulties, that would not say: 
"So far as I can see God, and am thoroughly in- 
formed of His purposes, so far will I trust Him but 
no farther." 

Now this day as I said is Palm Sunday. You ob- 
serve all around you the signs of rejoicing. It is 
toward the close of our Lenten season, the time 
when, ordinarily, we are bewailing with our Blessed 
Lord the sins and misfortunes that afflict humanity; 
and, following Him step by step as He goes from 
His temptation through His life to His crucifixion, 
we try to share in His mysterious sorrow. And 
yet Holy Church breaks in upon the gloom of this 
time by commemorating this one day of solemn 
triumph in which our Lord entered into the city of 
Jerusalem. A most typical entry, foretold by the 



UNITARIANS AND OTHER INFIDELS. 138 

Prophets not of a man merely but of a God. And 
we take up the gladsome strain and like those who 
cast palm-branches in His way we shout: — "Bless- 
ed is He that coiaeth in the Name of the Lord: 
Hosanna in the Highest," praying God at the same 
time to preserve us from that fickleness, that hypoc- 
risy which induced some of those who shouted 
" Hosanna" at His entry into Jerusalem, to cry 
"Crucify Him" on the Friday which followed. 

Although I had no intention in my mind of setting 
the particular consideration of this subject for this 
day, yet He Who orders all things makes it, I be- 
lieve, accord with the spirit of the day, and I see 
in this an undesigned coincidence, whereat I re- 
joice. 

I am to speak to-day of Infidels, and particularly, 
of those persons who, calling themselves Chris- 
tians, are the most awful of Infidels — the Unitar- 
ians. 

I am very conscious that the word is ungentle in 
the ears of men. I use it however, with a full 
consciousness of its meaning, nor do I see for the 
life of me, how any man professing the faith of 
Christ can think it improperly applied, as I apply 
it. If I speak of Unitarians as Infidels only, I am 
n fact showing much more consideration for their 
feelings than I am warranted in doing, Holy Scrip- 
ture being the judge. For, while we can under- 
stand how an open enemy can stab his foe to the 
heart, we can scarcely understand how an Apostle, 
like Judas, could betray his friend. And yet, better 
the kiss of Judas, truer were the kiss of Judas, than 
the affected love of men who, in this XIX century, 
call themselves Unitarian Christians and deny 
Christ. Any day would I prefer Judas, because to 
him there was sorrow, regret, remorse. It is with- 
in the possibilities of charity to believe that Judas 
may have thought that our Lord would escape 
from His enemies, or that he fancied he might pre- 
cipitate the public recognition \ K ' His Kingship, as 



134 UNITARIANS AND OTHER INFIDELS. 

some theologians believe, but what can be said of 
men to whom the testimony of the ages has brought 
no conviction of that power, and who resist the, 
but for themselves, universal conviction of the con- 
science of the whole Christian world. 

To my mind the Pagan, the Mahommedan, the 
man who knows nothing whatever of Christianity 
has some hold upon God because he comes to Him 
in ignorance for which he may not be responsible ; 
but to a man born in a Christian community, breath- 
ing at every inspiration a Christian atmosphere, 
hearing on every side the message of the Gospel and 
the voice of Christian prayer; who is brought face 
to face with what Christ has done and is doing for 
mankind, and who yet rejects the Deity of Jesus ; 
for that man — for such people — well, well, God help 
us, it is very hard ; for some of us are married to 
them, and some of us take them by the hand every 
day, and we look into their faces — it is a terrible 
thing, my brethren, but oh ! may there not be more 
hope for Judas Iscariot in the day of judgment than 
for them ? 

I see that the statement is still persisted in that I 
am attacking the various religious bodies, and that 
this uncharitable work is to culminate to-day. For 
my own part I do not care for all the statements 
that all the newspapers in America can make in a 
thousand years ; they may amuse themselves as they 
please, but I am unwilling that you should entertain 
a false idea as to the motive that prompted these 
lectures. I state here in my place, that so far from 
being the attacker I am the defendant. I am simply 
replying to attacks which, within the past year, have 
been freely made upon the Church from almost every 
sectarian pulpit in the city. 

Is there any breach of truth or charity in what I 
have now said with regard to the Unitarians? 
Who shall convict me of it ? Not the various so- 
called li Evangelical bodies," unless they be untrue 
to their own standards. 



UNITARIANS AND OTHER INFIDELS. 135 

But first, a word as to this question of charity 
in general. There is a sort of mawkish sentiment- 
ality that passes for charity which deserves to be 
exposed. There is nothing real about it. It is a 
kind of drivel thac excuses any sort of disaffection 
towards God, but which would not for a moment ex- 
cuse the least disloyalty towards ourselves. Nobody 
believes in it, and nobody believes less in it than 
the weak creatures who use it. 

I think you will do me the justice to believe that I 
have not attempted in the preceding lectures of this 
course to appeal to your passions in any way, and 
that when I showed you the utter hollowness of this 
mis-named charity I was only speaking that that you 
yourselves do know. I showed you from their own 
statements that the Methodist denounced the Pres- 
byterian, and the Presbyterian the Methodist. The 
Baptist utterly rejects the Campbellice and the Camp- 
bellite the Baptist. And that he may have a dis- 
tinction in this work of repudiation, the Baptist de- 
christianizes the whole of the rest of the world. I 
defy contradiction. Nevertheless, you will observe 
that there are so-called " Ministerial meetings" in 
which all of these brethren meet, excepting, of 
course, the Unitarians, and they speak soft, sooth- 
ing words to each other, metaphorically tickling 
each other's ribs, and easily deluded people fancy 
that they arc very much in love with each other. 
And yet every man with brains knows that they can 
have no real fellowship with each other ecclesiasti- 
cally ; that the whole thing is a sham ; and that the 
tacit understanding that they have agreed to 
disagree is a compact which however it may claim the 
inspiration of the devil, was certainly never begot- 
ten of God. Yet, when a priest of the Church ven- 
tures to speak of these matters in which they differ, 
behold he is a firebrand. I may denounce Roman- 
ism, and every one is with me ; but when I come to 
speak, as now, of people whose theological stand- 
point is unknown except in the one dreadful direction 



t«6 UNITARIANS AND OTHER INFIDELS. 

of denying the Deity of our Lord, I am expected to 
walk softly, and because of their refinement. and 
culture forsooth, ignore the horrible insult to my 
God and Saviour. I will not do it. 

Unitarians understand very well the odium which 
attaches to a too plain pronouncement on this sub- 
ject. And they are adroit too. To illustrate : I 
opened a volume of sermons written by a Unitarian 
the other day, and I found it full of the most beauti- 
ful, most poetic utterances on Christian charity. 
One would suppose that the blessed Apostle himself 
could not have expressed himself on this point more 
lovingly. To my surprise I also found expressions 
of devotion to our blessed Lord, and such terms 
used as would lead one to believe that the writer 
adored our Saviour with all the homage which a 
God could demand. It was just such a sermon as 
might be preached from this pulpit on any ordinary 
occasion to set forth the Divinity of Christ. The 
words of adoration seemed to be so spontaneous, 
the piety so fervent that, were one not forewarned, 
it might easily pass for orthodoxy. But a little 
close inspection showed that it was written for a 
purpose, and an unworthy one at that, to deceive 
the reader as to the position of Unitarianism on 
this very point. There was another sermon setting 
forth the loveliness of the character of Christ in 
such glowing terms that I confess to you the thought 
came to me to use it here to-day for the sake of the 
amusement it would afford me in seeing it torn to 
pieces to-morrow morning, as this address will be, 
as a weak and unworthy attack upon a respectable 
Christian body. 

Now, I class the Unitarians with Infidels. What 
is the meaning of the word Infidel ? An Infidel is 
simply defined to be one who has not the Faith. 
What faith ? In this land and in this age the ordi- 
nary application of the word is to one who denies 
the Christian religion, by which is commonly meant 
the belief in the Deity of Jesus Christ. But I am 



UNITARIANS AND OTHER INFIDELS. 13T 

not Here to-day to prove that Unitarians are Infi- 
dels. 1 assume that they are, and that they are so 
upon their own confession. They have not, nor do 
they claim to have, the Apostles' doctrines, instead, 
1 am here to repel a charge which our long-suffering 
people have endured with a courage unknown to 
these so-called Christians. I am here to repel a 
charge hurled against us by Unitarians, and which 
we have been all too slow to repel. One of the most 
infamous in the catalogue of sins. 

Now compose yourselves, nor fancy that I am ro- 
mancing. Do you not think that it would be a 
most arrogant thing for one person out of a thousand 
persons to declare that the nine hundred and ninety- 
nine were all wrong, and that he alone was all right ? 
You have aU iieard, no doubt, of that singu/ar jury- 
man who so ia.nented that he had been housed up 
with eleven stubborn men who would not come to a 
right view of the question ? You have laughed over 
it, of course. You have thought that perhaps there 
was something to be said on the other side. Per- 
haps you thought that the twelfth was the stubborn 
man and that it might be wise for him to change 
his mind. 

Now observe : Unitarianism charges upon a still 
larger proportion of people who profess and call 
themselves Christians the horrible sins of Idolatry 
and Blasphemy against the Most High God ! 

Millions and millions of the living baptised, mil- 
lions upon millions of our sainted dead, are thus 
branded by this mere handful of arrogant pretend- 
ers ! Have you ever thought of that ? 

My Brethren, this is no fanciful statement, made 
in the heat of passion ; it is not the incautious utter- 
ance of frenzied controversy. It is a sad fact, only 
too susceptible of proof. Before its dreadful pro- 
portions my classification of Unitarians with Infidels 
sinks into utter insignificance. 

God forgives many sins ; but there is one sin whick 
He does not readily forgive. It is the sin of con- 



138 UNITARIANS AND OTHER INFIDEIa,. 

scious Idolatry. He declares again and again that 
He will not suffer His glory to be given to another 
— that He is a jealous God — that lie will not have 
any other worshipped after His Name. Now, the 
whole Christian world, except that infinitessimal 
portion called Unitarians, who have even less right 
than the Jews to be called Christian, worship and 
adore Jesus Christ as God. They deny that He is 
God. Upon this point we have absolute clearness. 
Whatever haziness attaches to other questions, here 
there is positive affirmation on the one side and a? 
positive denial on the other. I am not. going into 
the argument : I content, myself with the mere state- 
ment of the question. Jesus Christ is God or He 
is not God. That surely is simple. If He be not 
God, we are convicted Idolaters ; there is absolutely 
no escape from the charge, and from the punish- 
ment. If He be God, then to speak of Unitarians 
as Infidels is being absolutely mild. 

Now, I do not mean to go into a discussion as to 
the Deity of our Lord. The odium of being unchari- 
table, of being arrogant, of having rashly accused 
my brethren, who are certainly as good as myself, 
is upou me, and very naturally I desire to show that 
so far is that from the truth that instead of being 
the assailant, I am only too considerate, weakly 
considerate, of their feelings. 

I have no doubt that you were all perfectly satis- 
fied when I spoke the other day of the Romanists, 
who are believed to give to the Blessed Virgin the 
homage which should be given to God alone. Who, 
under cover of the three forms or grades of worship, 
Dulia. Hyperdulia andLatria offer a homage, which 
in the two last-mentioned grades cannot be distin- 
guished from each other. But in all the ages there 
has never been a distinction in the mind of the 
Church between the worship which should be given 
to God the Father and God the Son. 

Think of the millions of prayers that have been 
directed to Jesus Christ as God Think of the wor- 



UNITARIANS AND OTHER INFIDELS. 139 

ship, both of body and soul that has been offered 
Him as God. Think of the multitudes of holy souls 
that have passed out of this world, resting all their 
hopes of salvation upon Jesus Christ as God. Think 
of the vast army of men that to-day turn their eyes 
filled with the light of an undying love to the cross 
of Jesus Christ, in the full belief that He who suf- 
fered thereon was no other than the God who made 
and redeemed them, and then consider the awful 
doom of these millions if Unitaiianism be right, and 
there be any place of future punishment at all ; and, 
if they be not right, the gross insult perpetrated 
upon such a mass of humanity. 

For they say He is not God. But we have cer- 
tainly elevated to the place of God One who in their 
mind is but a creature. It matters not how excell- 
ent a creature. It can make no difference whatever 
whether He were man or angel ; whether He came 
by ordinary generation or by miracle ; whether He 
were the greatest prophet or the highest Archangel, 
or whether He were a special creation, if He be not 
God then are we Idolaters and Blasphemers and 
there is no escape from the consequences ; for we 
worship and adore Him with Divine homage. For, 
between the Seraph that wings his way about God's 
throne and God Himself there is a distance so vast, 
a gulf so impassable that there is no possible con- 
ception of a bridge. Between the greatest in the 
kingdom of heaven, whether prophet or Archangel 
and God Himself there is a space more infinite than 
the distance of this planet from the farthest star 
that sentinels the outpost of the Universe. Now, 
when the question is of arrogancy as between Uni- 
tarians and ourselves, when the question is of ex- 
clusiveness, I am willing to leave it to the decision 
of even a fair-minded Unitarian, though I frankly 
acknowledge that would be a hard creature to find. 

I want you to think over these matters for your- 
selves, my dear brethren, and say who is the stub- 
born juryman. 



140 UNITARIANS AND OTHER INFIDELS. 

But the Unitarian is disingenuous. The same 
difficulty is experienced in dealing with him, so far 
as theology is concerned, as with the Campbellite. 
Nobody knows just where to rind the Campbellite 
on any other matter than Immersion, and so also no 
one can discover the whereabouts of the Unitarian 
on any other point than the denial of the Godhood 
of Jesus Christ, and in many instances one has to 
push him very closely to the wall before he will 
acknowledge his real position on this point. 

Generally speaking, each Unitarian is a law to 
himself. Thus he can best escape criticism. He 
has adroitly managed to superinduce a sort of nebu- 
lous light over his theology so that the unthinking 
are charmed by the vagueness which comes of an 
affected learning. He does not know much of Holy 
Scripture, but then he is thoroughly up in tne Vedas 
and other sacrc 1 books of the Orientals. For Com- 
mentaries he has a kind of indulgent contempt, but 
for the German philosophers a wonderful regard. 
Yet he is careful too not to shock the superstitions 
of his less well-learned neighbor. The inaccuracies 
of the translators of the Bible are ever before him. 
The unlikelihood of some of its statements are his 
stock-in-trade. The " Light of Reason" is his Sun, 
the comprehension of his brain the Moon ; and front 
both of these he is prepared to enlighten mankind. 

Still, notwithstanding the general haziness of ex- 
pression, a sort of classification may be entered 
upon. They are usually divided into the Conserva- 
tive and the' Radical. The Conservative is gradu- 
ally disappearing, except in localities where a pre- 
judice against Infidelity exists, or where old age has 
dispelled the illusions which braggardism begot. 
In thriving centres, he is being rapidly replaced by 
the Radical. For instance : I knew a Unitarian 
minister, a very lovely man (except for this sin) de- 
vout and pure-minded he seemed to be. One might 
listen to him for a dozen years, and unless one had 
been previously told, one could scarcely discover 



UNITARIANS AND OTHER INFIDELS. 141 

that he did not believe with the most orthodox par- 
son in the city. Evidently he did not dwell upon 
the distinctive features of his sect. He ?lung to 
themes which related to the sentiment — the subjec- 
tivity — of religion. He might have passed for an old 
time Methodist preacher. But he was too old ank 
was succeeded by a smart young man who affected 
to be a Hegelian. That, you know, was captivating. 
He was a philosopher, and therefore if he were a 
little difficult to comprehend, so much the better. I 
remember him very well. Whatever modesty the 
old man showed in giving utterance to his views on 
knotty points, was certainly unheeded by his suc- 
cessor. He had no scruple in airing his views as 
to the Deity of Christ. Some of his own people told 
me that such were not the teachings they were ac- 
customed to hear, that they were sorry he had taken 
this particular stand, it was hardly prudent in such 
a community and so on, but I am free to say that 
I could better tolerate the younger man, strange 
as that may sound, for after all, the Deity of Christ- 
being denied by both (as must have been the case) 
he at least was honest and did not deceive nor 
appear to deceive his neighbors as to his real 
position. 

Again, as might have been expected, there is lit> 
tie real unity between these classes. The Radical 
rather despises his somewhat timid co-religionist. 
The Conservative, in his opinion, has not yet been 
altogether emancipated from the bondage of some 
show of regard for Poly Scripture and Christian 
institutions. He has not riseu into that clearer 
atmosphere where any sort of reverence for the 
ancients of the Bible is considered a kind of barba- 
rism not yet sufficiently infused with the spirit of a 
higher criticism to overcome the superstitious in- 
fluence of fairy tales, myths, ghosts and hob-gob- 
lins. Perhaps his feeling is best described as that 
of an amused pity that his brother can only abandon 
the old moorage one at a time, and still cling, 



142 UNITARIANS AND OTHER INFIDELS. 

though reluctantly, to a few of the coinages of Pen- 
tateuch and the Gospels. 

The Conservative is rather afraid of the Radical 
as an extremist, but on the whole is trying to stand 
with as little aid as possible from the old beliefs. 
Still, with a worldly wisdom, he tries to touch the 
ordinary Christian life with one hand while he 
stretches the other toward the exalted plane on 
which his altogether enfranchised brother stands. 
He will get there after awhile. At present he gilds 
the infidel pill for the feebler folk, and exhibits 
somewhat brighter spots and a more graceful sinu- 
osity amongst the unwary. 

It is almost refreshing to hear either of them say 
when assailed u You have altogether mistaken the 
genius of Unitarianism, you do not understand it." 
And yet it does not appear to be so enigmatical 
after all. I have read its history, and there is 
nothing so profound there : certainly nothing to 
make an ordinary understanding despair. One may 
confess to some contusion as to its doctrines for 
there a point is touched with regard to which they 
have as much difficulty of comprehension as the 
proudest metaphysician amongst them can desire. 

Its history is scarcely one hundred and fifty years 
old. It is the lineal descendant of the Socinians. 
but has acquired a boldness of unbelief that even 
that rather bold body shrank from. 

As regards what it professes to teach, although 
as I said each man is his own theologian, yet some- 
thing of a scheme may be observed. 

The Radical gravitates toward the abstruse and 
the unknowable, consequently he is the more learned 
of the two. He delights in Hegel, is enraptured 
with the researches of Blavatsky, talks of Theosophy 
and Ethical culture, and takes his chance of the 
future, if there be one. The Bible is useful for fur- 
nishing pithy texts, and now and then an instruct- 
ive allegory, or affecting scene. But that the storj 
of Noah's Ark, or the drying-up of the Red Sea, or 



UNITARIANS AND OTHER i*r£DELS. 143 

the lali of Jericho, or that Balaam, or Samson, or 
Elijah, or Elisha were all real, and were and did 
and said as recorded is too preposterous for the 
XlXth century. Nevertheless the system of the 
Kabbalah, the sacred books of the Brahmins, the 
Persians, the Egyptians, ah ! when you speak of 
books, these demand attention. Oh ! that the pro- 
phets had been educated in Boston ! 

The Conservative, while not going quite so far as 
yet, avoids in his public utterances much of this 
questionable literature, and so his theology may be 
said to be the Religion of Gush. He does not dis- 
card Miracles, he smiles at and explains them. He 
does not distinctly deny a peculiar kind of birth in 
Christ, nor a fortuitous concurrence of events sur- 
rounding the close ol his life, but the phenomena 
maybe scientifically adjusted without destroying the 
pathos of the beautiful occasions. Oh that the 
Apostles had read Robert Elsmere 1 

On the confines of both these forms of Unitarian- 
ism alike, Agnosticism and Atheism sit waiting for 
their prey. 

Now with regard to the other Infidels who have 
hot formed themselves into bodies professing any 
kind of Christianity, however emasculated, I shall 
have but little to say now. They have never been 
as dangerous as those I have been dealing with to- 
day. 

Christian men are not greatly troubled over theo- 
retical infidelity. Much more does the practical 
infidelity of believers give cause for sorrow. And 
although, strictly speaking, the Infidel may not be 
an Atheist ; yet the term has been generally extended 
to include Atheists. The position of the Atheist is 
so unusual that there is even less trouble in disposing 
of him than of the mere infidel. Upon him lies the 
burden of proof that there is no God. We are not 
called to prove it. To us there is proof sufficient for 
a rational man in the universality of the idea, in the 
general acknowledgment of His sovereignty, and of 



144 UNITARIANS AND OTHKR INFIDELS. 

our accountability. The witnesses with which He 
has surrounded Himself, both within us and without, 
material and immaterial, are abundant and constant 
in their testimony, and therefore we may unhesi- 
tatingly accept the statement of the Psalmist that 
it is "the fool that saith in his heart there is no 
God." For how shall a man know that there is no 
God, in opposition to the instinct of the enormous 
majority, nay the almost unanimous voice of the 
whole creation ? No testimony will avail against the 
universal cry of humanity through all the ages ; nor 
could the imagined experience of all the Atheists 
combined outweigh the testimony, for you cannot 
imagine an experience of that which does not exist. 
To know that there is no God each man for himself 
must have traversed every land and sailed over 
every sea ; nay, he must have inspected each parti- 
cle of matter, and studied every drop of water in 
every ocean. He must have climbed up to every 
star and searched through every sun, for in that 
spot which had escaped his individual observation 
might have been found a God, or the idea of a God. 
The Infidel, or Agnostic (which is now the polite 
term for the same thing) is not far behind his more 
daring neighbor. He does not venture an unquali- 
fied denial, but he reaches the end all the same. 
He is not much concerned a» to the majesty of human 
reason in the mass, as he is positive it appears in 
himself. His mind must be satisfied. Why should 
there be a God whom he cannot comprehend ? It 
does not seem to occur to him that an Infinite God 
comprehended by a finite mind, and perhaps not 
the very best mind in the world either, would be 
nobody's God, not even his own. 

For the one difficulty on the Believer's side there 
are a thousand on the side of the Infidel. 

As I bring these lectures to a close I want to say 
a few words. I began them, primarily, for my own 
people. I made no undue effort to call public at- 
tention to them, nor other effort than was expressed 



UNITARIANS AND OTHER INFIDELS. 145 

in the ordinary announcement of the services of the 
Sundays. But public attention has been called to 
them, and the multitudes that have thronged to this 
church Sunday after Sunday, have given me reason 
to believe that the discussion of the questions in- 
volved lies very near the heart of intelligent men 
and women. 

Nevertheless, it has pleased some people to take 
exception to my course. I have been charged with 
wantonly outraging the feelings of Christian people 
who do not agree with the position of the Church. 
I take it for granted that such is inevitable to the 
presentation of any opinions that traverse the judg- 
ment of other persons. The setting forth of Roman- 
ism, of Presbyterianism, of Methodism, of Camp- 
bellism, or of Unitarianism would doubtless be at- 
tended with statements obnoxious to me. I, too, 
have feelings. And it may be permitted to me to 
say that I can scarcely be charged with having in- 
augurated this fight. I have carefully noted that 
within the past year the Church which I have the 
honor to serve has been gratuitously attacked, and 
thoroughly abused. Not a single sect, named by 
me, has failed to pay her the attention of its vitu- 
peration as a formalist body, without vital piety, as 
an arrogant, exclusive and diminutive sect, some 
parts of which (this particular Church in which your 
humble servant ministers amongst others) are bound 
for Rome. 

Here, within the walls of my own Church, I have 
thought it good to warn my people of the evils of 
sectarianism. In doing so I have as far as pos- 
sible avoided personalities — I have named no living 
man, certainly not one of this city. I have spoken 
of Organizations, of Systems, not of men; ami here 
I have dealt better with my opponents than they 
have with me; fori have been informed that the 
Rector of this Church has been made the theme of 
addresses within the last six months by several of 
the representatives of the bodies named by me. 



146 UNITARIANS AND OTBER INFIDELS. 

Moreover, in examining the systems of the vari- 
ous sects I did not speak of the points which are 
uppermost in people's minds, with perhaps one ex- 
ception. I did not undertake to prove the Divinity 
of Christ as against the Unitarians, but simply 
showed that they charged us with Idolatry. IS'oi 
the iu validity of Immersion as against the Baptists 
and Campbollites, but merely that they could not 
stand on Holy Scripture for a foundation because 
they were not all Greek and Hebrew scholars, and 
had not access to the original manuscripts, as their 
system demands. I was particularly kind to the 
Methodists and infinitely more so than one of their 
preachers in this city was to me. Even the Pres- 
byterians had little cause of complaint, for I barely 
more than mentioned Calvinism, and only engaged 
them on the subject of garbling the Fathers, which 
theft I fear they cannot deny. The Romanists were 
the only people that might have reasonably felt 
hurt, because I tried to cut every prop from beneath 
their system. ' 

Another thing : I do not believe that any of the 
religious bodies that I have spoken of, make it a 
rule to pray statedly for me; but the Church here 
directs me to pray tor all these whether I like to do 
so or not. I desire, however, to record the fact 
that I perform this duty with great pleasure and 
sincere love. Everyday, twice a day in this place, 
I pray that God may lead into the way of truth all 
such as have erred and are deceived ; and that all 
who profess and call themselves Christians may be 
led into the way of truth ; and next Friday, the day 
on which we commemorate the crucifixion of our 
Divine Lord, we will specially pray lor all Jews, 
Turks, Infidels and Heretics, that God may convert 
and bring them home. 

And by the way, I am reminded that I forgot to 
say to you that the immediate forefathers of the 
Unitarians made overtures to the Mahommedans to 
join with them, as indeed was only consistent, but 



UNITARIANS AND OTHER INFIDELS. 147 

the Mahommedans refused on account of a little 
difficulty which arose on the subject of the plurality 
of wives and with regard to which the English had 
some peculiar prejudices. This is an historical 
fact, however, as you will find if you can spare the 
time to look it up. 

In contrast with all these confusing systems, I 
have tried to show you, rather by inference than by 
exact statement, how truly the Church fulfils all the 
requirements of man's nature and God's demands. 
That she must stand first in His regard because our 
Divine Lord stands first in her regard. She is 
built upon Him not the Bible, and though her love 
and reverence for His sacred Word exceeds all that 
men can write or say of it, yet she does not profess 
to place it as her foundation stone, nor is it alone 
the rule of faith and practice to that body that lis- 
tened to the words that fell from His lips and the 
lips of His holy Apostles. That she honors the 
Bible above all things else may be inferred from 
the fact that more than five times as much of its 
sacred language is used in the assemblies of the 
Chu/ch on a Sunday than in any other body of pro- 
fessing Christians. Indeed it is her testimony to 
its authenticity that makes it possible for sectar- 
ians to lift up their heel against their mother. 

And why, with this wealth of power have we, 
Christian people, not been able to effect the salva- 
tion of all people who speak our mother tongue? 
We talk of Christian Unity but we do not believe in 
it. Were even the people of this city to be of one 
heart and of one way in the service of (>od what a 
marvellous change for the better would come to 
even her material interests. We would attract the 
attention of the world. 

But see, dear brethren, the divided Christianity 
that can scarce oppose the inroads of infidelity. 
Creed warring against creed. Sect against sect. 
Will some one show a single grace, or virtue, or 
liberty in Christ which is not possessed by the 



148 UNITARIANS AND OTHER INFILaLS. 

Church of which I am a Priest? A single one that 
is necessary to a man's salvation. Why should you 
remain apart from her ? Is not the Gospel 
preached? Are not the Sacraments duly admin- 
istered ? Is it because devout prayers are not of- 
fered? No, no, for here more than amongst any 
other people do prayers go up to God, and the 
Blessed Sacrament of His Body and Blood is cele- 
brated with every rising sun. Here day by day, 
not alone in this Lenten season when we follow 
Him in His sufferings, but through all the year, in 
the days of His glory and of His triumph as well, 
we plead His merits and voice His praise. If now 
we are called to think of those who rent His gar- 
ments and cast lots upon His vesture, yet the dnys 
come when we bless Him that His chief vestment 
was untorn, the symbol of an united Christianity, 
and we long to hasten the hour of His coming and 
the ingathering of His elect. 

O! Divine Jesu! Who on this aay entering into 
Jerusalem, didst weep over the faithlessness of its 
people, because they knew not the time of their vis- 
itation, we humbly implore Thee to turn and soften 
the wicked, arouse the careless, recover the fallen, 
restore the penitent, heal all schisms, bring back 
the wandering, make all men to be of one heart 
and of one mind, that every soul acknowledging 
Thee as the one Lord may at last be received 
by Thee into the one kingdom of Thy eternal love, 
who with the Father and the Holy Ghost livest and 
reignest God, world without end. Amen. 




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